


Harry Potter And The Madwoman With A Box

by Fooldartz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-05-13
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 44,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fooldartz/pseuds/Fooldartz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Upon returning for their third year, Harry and his friends are surprised to find that Professor Binns has been replaced with a new teacher. Her name is Professor Evans, and she has messy black hair, green eyes, a scar on her forehead, and she lives in a phone booth that's bigger on the inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter One

                Dumbledore looked at the young woman in front of him, then at the paper in front of him. He’d thought it had been blank when she was holding it, but that obviously wasn’t the case. He sighed quietly. He knew he was getting old, but reminders like this were still unwelcome. The girl sat calmly, smiling slightly as he looked over her resume. He had to admit, the idea of having a living teacher teach History of Magic was appealing. When a class was so dull that even Minerva, the woman who’d once sat on a brick wall for twenty hours, was unable to stay awake through it, he was forced to conclude that it was no longer doing its job of educating students. After all, if a teacher couldn’t pay attention during a class, how could a student be expected to? Admittedly, at twenty-two she was a bit young for a teacher, but he supposed that after Binns nobody would complain too much, and who knew? Maybe having such a young teacher would help make the subject more interesting.

                “So Miss Evans, do you have any plans as to how long you’ll be staying?” He asked, setting down the resume. The girl shook her head.

                “Not really. I figured I’d stick with it for the rest of the year, and then see where we go from there.” Dumbledore nodded. That was a smart choice.

                “Well, everything seems to be in order. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, I can safely say that you’re hired.” The girl beamed.

                “Thank you sir, thank very much.” She said, standing up. Dumbledore shook her hand, gave her back her resume, and then sat back down as she walked down the stairs and out of his office.

_Six months later_

                “Who’s that?” Hermione asked, looking up at the staff table. Harry and Ron followed her gaze, and saw a young woman with short, messy black hair sitting with the rest of the staff.

                “Dunno. Must be a new teacher.” Ron said with a shrug.

                “She looks a little young to be a teacher though.” Hermione said with a frown.

                “Well, Dumbledore hired her, so she must be qualified.” Ron said with a shrug. Harry opened his mouth, but promptly closed it again when the Headmaster stood up.

                “Welcome!” said Dumbledore, the candlelight shimmering on his beard. “Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! I have a few things to say to you all, and as one of them is very serious, I think it best to get it out of the way before you become befuddled by our excellent feast…”

Dumbledore cleared his throat and continued, “As you will all be aware after their search of the Hogwarts Express, our school is presently playing host to some of the Dementors of Azkaban, who are here on Ministry of Magic business.”

He paused, and Harry remembered what Mr. Weasley had said about Dumbledore not being happy with the Dementors guarding the school.

“They are stationed at every entrance to the grounds,” Dumbledore continued, “and while they are with us, I must make it plain that nobody is to leave school without permission. Dementors are not to be fooled by tricks or disguises — or even Invisibility Cloaks,” he added blandly, and Harry and Ron glanced at each other. “It is not in the nature of a Dementor to understand pleading or excuses. I therefore warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. I look to the prefects, and our new Head Boy and Girl, to make sure that no student runs afoul of the Dementors,” he said.

Percy, who was sitting a few seats down from Harry, puffed out his chest again and stared around impressively. Dumbledore paused again; he looked very seriously around the hall, and nobody moved or made a sound.

“On a happier note,” he continued, “I am pleased to welcome three new teachers to our ranks this year.

“First, Professor Lupin, who has kindly consented to fill the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

There was some scattered, rather unenthusiastic applause. Only those who had been in the compartment on the train with Professor Lupin clapped hard, Harry among them. Professor Lupin looked particularly shabby next to all the other teachers in their best robes.

“Look at Snape!” Ron hissed in Harry’s ear.

Professor Snape, the Potions master, was staring along the staff table at Professor Lupin. It was common knowledge that Snape wanted the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, but even Harry, who hated Snape, was startled at the expression twisting his thin, sallow face. It was beyond anger: it was loathing. Harry knew that expression only too well; it was the look Snape wore every time he set eyes on Harry.

“As for our second new appointment,” Dumbledore continued as the lukewarm applause for Professor Lupin died away. “Well, I am sorry to tell you that Professor Kettleburn, our Care of Magical Creatures teacher, retired at the end of last year in order to enjoy more time with his remaining limbs. However, I am delighted to say that his place will be filled by none other than Rubeus Hagrid, who has agreed to take on this teaching job in addition to his gamekeeping duties.”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at one another, stunned. Then they joined in with the applause, which was tumultuous at the Gryffindor table in particular. Harry leaned forward to see Hagrid, who was ruby red in the face and staring down at his enormous hands, his wide grin hidden in the tangle of his black beard.

“We should’ve known!” Ron roared, pounding the table. “Who else would have assigned us a biting book?”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were the last to stop clapping, and as Professor Dumbledore started speaking again, they saw that Hagrid was wiping his eyes on the tablecloth.

“And finally, it is with mixed feelings that I must tell you that, while you were all away this summer, Professor Binns was exorcised and as such, cannot continue teaching History of Magic. Taking his place this year however, is Professor Evans.” The young woman stood up and received polite applause, though Harry noticed that some of the older boys (and a few of the girls) were more enthusiastic then their peers.

“Well, I think that’s everything of importance,” said Dumbledore. “Let the feast begin!” Harry and Ron began to dig in as the food appeared at the table.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, seeing the small frown on Hermione’s face.

“She just seems really young. I mean, if it was something like Divination or Care of Magical Creatures, I’d understand, but History of Magic is a really detailed course that requires a lot of knowledge.” Hermione said, still frowning.

“Come off it Hermione, Dumbledore wouldn’t hire someone that couldn’t teach the subject.” Ron said, rolling his eyes.

“Lockhart.” Hermione said simply.

“That’s different, nobody’s been able to keep that job for more than a year for forty years now, he had to take what he could get. He _exorcised_ Binns so he could hire her, and that’s not an easy ritual to do.” Ron said. Harry and Hermione looked at him.

“How do you know about how difficult it is to exorcise a ghost?” Harry asked, surprised. Ron shrugged.

“Fred and George saw some muggle movie called Ghostbusters and they liked it so much they actually did research to see if they could become real ones, but they decided the exorcism ritual was too complicated to be worth it.” He said. “I mean, it is Dumbledore, so he probably had an easier time of it, but still.” Harry shrugged. He didn’t really care one way or the other about History of Magic, since, while boring, it at least gave him a relatively free period with which he could do last minute homework, or just goof off with Ron. Worst case scenario, the class was still utterly boring and he got to sleep through it again.

_Sixteen hours later_

“Hello, I’m Maria Evans, you can call me Professor Evans, Miss Evans, or ‘That annoying woman who won’t shut up and let me sleep’.” There was some scattered laughter throughout the class, and Maria smiled. Hermione raised her hand. “Yes Miss…?”

“Granger Professor. And I was just wondering what you wanted us to do with our essays.” Maria blinked.

“Oh right, those things…I think he mentioned them somewhere in his notes.” She said, turning and picking up some papers from her desk and flipping through them. “Ah yes, here it is. ‘Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss.’ She stared at the paper for a moment, then crumpled it up and tossed it over her shoulder. “Okay, be honest here, who actually did this?” Only a few people, including Harry and Hermione, raised their hands. “Okay…um…50 points to Gryffindor for the five of you who actually did the homework I guess.” She said with a shrug.

“But…” Hermione started, actually looking disappointed.

“Miss Granger, there are two reasons for me to not take those essays. First of all, we’re not covering the Witch Burnings of the Fourteenth Century at all this year, and secondly, you wrote that essay with another teacher in mind, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to grade it as I’ll have a different set of standards then Professor Binns. Understand?” Hermione nodded reluctantly, and Maria smiled.

“Good, now, on to teaching. Quite frankly, at this point in time, you don’t really need to know about the Witch Burnings. Muggles don’t try and burn witches anymore, they’ll just shoot you and then dissect your corpse, but that’s for any of you with a Muggle Studies class. And all you really need to know about the Goblin Rebellions is this- keep happening because Goblins have a bloodthirsty nature and Wizards keep trying to subjugate them, such as the Wand Ban of 1631 which prohibited any magic creatures other than witches and wizards from using wands, although that was probably a reaction to the 1612 Goblin Rebellion that took place in Hogsmeade. Be careful of Goblins, they’re intelligent, ruthless, and control the money supply. No, you’re at that point where you’re too young to need to know all this (we’ll be saving that for the O.W.L.s) and yet old enough to know, I hope, that some history is important. So, we’ll be talking about more relevant history. Specifically, the recent war with Voldemort.” All the students except Harry flinched and/or gasped.

“Really? Just…really? Bloody hell, you lot are 13!” Maria said, staring at them in disbelief. “You’re not even old enough to remember what it was like when he was in power.” She sighed and sat down on the edge of her desk, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I forgot about this.” She muttered. There was an awkward silence for a few moments, then Maria stood back up, clapping her hands together. “Right. Well then, I guess we’ll just have to start from the beginning. Well, not the very beginning, but I’ll have to humanize the twatwaffle…fun word, twatwaffle.” She paused. “Well, anyway, back to my original point. I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about Voldemort’s parents…you know what, no, I’m not calling him that. I’ll never be able to get through class with your constant shuddering, and it defeats the purpose of humanizing him if I call him by his little nickname.

“From now on, I’m going to call him Tom. You see, while there’s not much known about his parents, we do know where he was raised.”

_Three hours later_

Maria walked into the Staff Room and considered the wardrobe. “Professor?” She asked, turning to look at Lupin, who was nursing a cup of tea. “Are you done with the Boggart?” Lupin paused thoughtfully.

“Yes, I suppose I am.” He said finally. “Why? Is it bothering you? I suppose I should have thought of that before bringing it in here. I can move it.” He said, starting to get up.

“No!” Maria said quickly, wincing inwardly. She’d forgotten about his guilt complex. “It’s just that, well, I’m unhealthily curious, I’ll admit it, and I haven’t faced a boggart since I was thirteen myself. So, once you’re done with your tea, would you mind if I finished it off?” Lupin looked at her, surprised. While Boggarts weren’t a particularly threatening creature, the average witch or wizard wouldn’t normally volunteer to take one on unless they had to.

“Of course, feel free.” He said finally, nodding. Maria smiled at him, then walked over to the stove and began making herself a cup of hot chocolate, occupying herself until Lupin left. Once he was safely gone, she shut the door and began silently casting spells-one to alert her if anyone came down the hallway, one to seal the door shut, and a third to make sure nobody would hear anything. When that was done she turned to face the wardrobe, took a deep breath, and waved her wand once more, opening the doors. There was a pause, and then suddenly there were multiple people in front of her. Well, there were four corpses laid out in a circle, with one living person. Standing in the middle of that grisly ring was herself, with a Time Turner encased in a locket that was emblazoned with the Hogwarts Crest resting around her neck.

“You poor fool.” The boggart began, smiling patronizingly. “How many times have you saved these people,” It gestured at the four distinct corpses, “And how many times have you been hurt regardless of that fact? Perhaps it’s time to admit that the universe simply doesn’t care about your pathetic efforts and try something different.”

“I’m pathetic?” Maria scoffed. “You’re the one that decided to work with…him!” She spat, pointing at the Time Turner with her wand. “What you fail to understand boggart, is that while turning into…that is what worries me the most, it’s not my greatest _fear_ , because nothing scares me at this point. I’ve seen everything there is to see.” The boggart considered her for a moment.

“No, that’s not it. You’re terrified of becoming me, I can tell.” It said after a moment. “The only thing is, you’re one of those people.”

“One of what people?” Maria asked.

“And if Harlequin shall steal your Columbine,  Laugh, Pagliaccio, so the crowd will cheer! Turn your distress and tears into jest, your pain and sobbing into a funny face - Ah! Laugh, Pagliaccio, at your broken love! Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart!” The boggart quoted.

“Oh, you think I’m one of those Sad Clown types, the kind that makes jokes to hide their pain and fears. Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you’re wrong. I really am this happy all the time.” The boggart gave another patronizing smile.

“You can lie to everybody else Maria, but you can’t lie to yourself.” It told her.

“I can and I am.” Maria growled. “And besides, what does that have to do with anything? Your territory is fear, not sorrow.”

“Perhaps not, but the thing is, what terrifies you most is you. I become whatever I turn into mind, body, and soul. I am you now, and I must admit, after so many animal forms this is refreshing. I’ve never taken a form so old or so…complicated.”

“Well that’s good.” Maria said. “As long as you’re entertained.”

 “And yet, in the end, you are merely another witch.” The boggart said with a smirk.

“Oh, you poor boggart, I am far more than just another witch.” Maria said, solemn for once. “Goodbye.” She raised her wand and pointed it at the copy of her.

“What happened to the girl that set out with the goal of only ever killing Death Eaters?” The boggart asked, sounding scared for the first time.

“I got old.” Maria said simply. “Avada Kedavra.”

_Fifteen minutes later_

Maria walked into her office, cast the same spell she’d cast in the staff room, and then walked over to the red telephone booth in the far corner. She opened the door and walked into a whole different room. “You’ll never become that.” A kind female voice said as she walked to her bed.

“Were you spying on me?” Maria said in a mock accusatory voice.

“Of course.” The voice said unapologetically. “How else would I know when you were in trouble?”

“I don’t get in trouble that often.” Maria said, grabbing a hip flask from off of the night stand and downing the contents, then sitting down and taking off her boots, then removing her contacts and putting them away.

“Yes you do.” The voice said, exasperated. “And forgive me for being nervous, since you’ve already decided to make this far more complicated than it needs to be.”

“I’m trying to limit my impact, you know that.” Maria said, climbing under the covers. “Goodnight Dear.”

“Goodnight Thief.” The voice said tenderly.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Two

                Dumbledore and McGonagall were speaking together in Dumbledore’s office, discussing what further options they could take to help keep the students safe when Snape burst into the office. “Tell me Albus, did you hire that woman just to upset me, or this another facet of your plan to try and get me to warm up to Potter?” Dumbledore blinked at him in surprise, confused for once.

                “Excuse me?” He asked the Potions Master.

                “That woman has bright green eyes, is constantly trying to be nice and helpful, and her last name is _Evans_.” Snape growled. Dumbledore suppressed a sigh. He knew that Severus had loved Lily, and that he still loved her, but sometimes he wondered if the love had turned into obsession. He’d never say so of course. McGonagall on the other hand, had no problems saying that, or something close to it at least.

                “Really Severus, you’re seeing connections where none exist.” She said sternly. “Evans is hardly a unique name, and neither is black hair or green eyes. And honestly, if you’re going to start suspecting that Dumbledore is plotting against you because the new teacher is nice, you may need to see Poppy about some sort of medication.” Snape glared at her and opened his mouth, but McGonagall cut him off. “Moreover, I find it odd that you’re ready complain about her now, but weren’t when she was still student here. I assume that she did take your class after all, as she clearly graduated.”

                “It is not my habit to ‘complain’ to the Headmaster about things he has no control over, such as the students that come here.” McGonagall raised an eyebrow.

                “Really? Because I seem to remember several instances where you came to Albus’ office solely to complain about Potter.” She pointed out.

                “Potter is an exception to many rules, something he is all too willing to exploit.” Snape growled. “He was not, however, personally interviewed and hired by Albus. So I will ask again. Was she hired just to upset me, or did you hire her in the hope that by giving me someone to replace Lily, I’d stop hating Potter?”

                “Severus, please.” Dumbledore said calmly. “You know that I’d never try to ‘replace Lily’ as you put it. Moreover, if I had, I’d have hired someone that shared more with her than eye color and last name. Being kind” He continued, cutting Snape off. “Is not something that Lily had a monopoly on. I am sorry, and I admit I should have warned you however.” Snape nodded his reluctant acceptance of the apology, turned around and walked out.

_Two hours later_

                “Mr. Malfoy!” Maria called out, walking across the grounds towards where Hagrid was teaching the third year Slytherins and Gryffindors, holding a plastic bag in her hand. The blonde boy turned away from the grey hippogriff to look at her, scowling.

                “What’s going on?” Hagrid asked, walking over as well, looking confused. Maria smiled at him.

                “Sorry Professor, I didn’t mean to interrupt. It’s just that Mr. Malfoy here left some things of his in my classroom, and as one of his teachers I felt it’d be remiss of me to not bring it to him as quickly as possible.”

                “Forgot something?” Malfoy repeated. “I didn’t forget something.”

                “Some _things_.” Maria said, emphasizing the plural, and reached into the bag. “You left an essay for Transfiguration,” she said, handing a scroll over to Malfoy. “Another essay for Defense Against the Dark Arts” Another scroll, “And…” She frowned, pulled out her wand, and used it to lift up the last object. “Some underwear.” Malfoy flushed scarlet as the rest of the class laughed. “From now on Mr. Malfoy, I’d appreciate it if you kept all of your clothes on during my class. If you feel that you _have_ to remove an article of your clothing, please have the courtesy to take it with you rather than leaving it behind.” With that she turned around and left, smiling. In the background she could hear some of the students still laughing, and Malfoy yelling back while Hagrid tried to restore order.

“Well, that’s one unnecessary crisis adverted.” She muttered. Admittedly Malfoy probably hated her now, but she could handle the wrath of a thirteen year old boy. She did feel a small twinge of guilt for so thoroughly disrupting Hagrid’s class, but in the end it was worth it. Now Malfoy would stop harassing Hagrid and focus on her. She reached the entrance doors, glanced to either side to make sure nobody was watching, and pulled out a piece of paper. “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” She muttered, tapping the paper with her wand. She examined it, making sure that nobody was near the Room of Requirement. “Mischief managed.”

_Fifteen minutes later_

Maria plopped Ravenclaw’s Diadem down on the bed, considering the Horcrux. “What do you think Dear?” She asked.

“What do you mean? You’re not suggesting we let it live are you?”

“Of course not. Well, maybe. The question is, what should we do with it and Dumbledore? If I remember correctly, he’s known about the Horcruxes for a while, though he only got irrefutable proof when he was given the Diary last year. So, what do we do? I could kill it and sneak Dumbledore the corpse, I could give him it while it still lives, or I could just kill it and leave it in the trophy room.”

“Well that depends. We both know Dumbledore won’t be able to find you out through Occlumency, but are you confident in your ability to not leave any clues? And in the end, how will it help? It might distract Dumbledore and make sure that he doesn’t pay as much attention to you, but on the other hand it might make things worse, since the one he’s most likely to suspect is you, the new teacher he barely knows as opposed to the teachers he’s spent years with and can be certain they don’t know anything about the Horcruxes.”

“Well, that’s helpful.” Maria said sarcastically.

“I’m simply giving you all your options. After all, I can’t destroy the Horcrux, so it’s up to you on what to do with the thing.” Maria sighed, and then picked up the soon to be dead Diadem.

“I’ll just give him the Locket.” She said, walking toward a door that had not been there before. She walked into the new room, placed the Diadem on the pedestal in the center of the room, then turned around and grabbed Gryffindor’s Sword from off of its stand.

“Wait!” An all too familiar voice hissed. Maria turned and gave the Horcrux, now manifested as a ghostly head, a predatory smile.

“I was wondering when you’d try and defend yourself.” She said, walking towards it with the sword resting on her shoulder.

“I could give you power beyond your wildest dreams! The Diadem’s powers are not lost; I could give you increased intelligence and magic you would never know!” The Horcrux said quickly.

“Sorry, I’m as smart as I need to be, and in fact, I know all magic. Goodbye.” The Horcrux screamed as Maria swung the sword down in an arc, cleaving it in half. “Why does the Diadem always just offer me power?” She asked, putting the sword back. “The Locket tries to depress me, Nagini tries to bite me, the Ring tries to make people wear it, and well, admittedly the cup doesn’t seem to do anything, but it’s a freaking cup. Everything else tries to kill me, so why does the Diadem just try and get me to work with it?”

“Well, it is Ravenclaw’s Diadem. Maybe it picked up on the creator’s subtlety rather than Voldemort’s brutality.”

“Tom can be subtle.” Maria pointed out, leaving the ‘kill room’ and heading for the trophy room.

“ _Tom_ can be.” Dear acknowledged. “Voldemort can be as well, but rarely is.”

“Muggles still don’t know about wizards though, which he could easily have changed.”

“Are you defending Voldemort?” Dear asked incredulously.

“No.” Maria snapped. “I’m just pointing out that we shouldn’t underestimate the enemy.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Dear admitted. Maria placed the two halves of the Diadem on a shelf next to a pile of other Diadem pieces, then turned around, ducked under the remains of the Pioneer 11 probe, and walked out.

_Eighteen hours later_

Maria smiled and flicked her wand. Fred and George Weasley flinched as the fake wands they’d been ‘fencing’ with exploded. “I’d suggest working a little harder on the wands before showing them to the public. They’re a little unstable still.” She glanced down at the ground, noticed the magical pressure pad, and shrugged. “What the hell?” She muttered. Might as well throw the twins a bone. She took a step forward, and a moment later water fell from the ceiling and landed on her, soaking her to the bone. The class stared at her in shock, except for Fred and George, who were laughing their butts off. “Very impressive, it took me two seconds to figure out what the pad would do if I stepped on it.” Maria told the twins. “That’s far longer than most people your age could manage if they’d tried to do the same thing.” The twins grinned.

 They and her had come to an arrangement after the first class, in which she’d repelled a prank of theirs and launched it back at them. Seeing as the spell had vanished their shirts, she had a fair idea of what the spell was meant to do, but she didn’t mind too terribly. It would have taken her less than a second to make a new one after all. So she’d saved them a bit of face, by striking up a deal with them. They never did anything to remove her clothes again, and she’d let them do whatever they wanted if they passed the quiz they’d be having the next class, so long as it didn’t distract the other students too much. The twins had thrown themselves at the quiz with surprising skill, passing with the highest scores in the class. Smirking, Maria waved her wand, and the water dropped itself on the twins, carefully on soaking their hair and clothes so as to leave their and everybody else’s notes unharmed.

Maria brushed her bangs out of her eyes, pushing them back and leaving her forehead in full view, then jumped as the class gasped. “What?” She asked, surprised. Angelina Johnson pointed at her forehead, and Maria paled slightly. She quickly pulled out a hand held mirror and checked her reflection, sighing in relief when she saw that the spell was still in place. “Phew, you guys scared me for a moment; I thought something had happened to me.” She said calmly, putting the mirror away and brushing her bangs back down.

“But…that scar’s huge!” Angelina protested, shocked. Maria shrugged.

“Old cooking accident.” She lied easily. “Apparently, when I was three I didn’t understand the concept of stoves being dangerous and I spilled boiling water on myself. Besides, as you grow your scars grow as they’re stretched out, so it’s really not as bad as it looks. Now then, back to our recap of the Goblin Rebellions.” She’d rather have taught them the more recent history she was teaching the third, fourth, and sixth years, but that wasn’t on the O.W.L.s for some reason.

_Five hours later_

Sirius paced impatiently around a clearing he’d found in the Forbidden Forest, still in dog form of course. He’d come to try and kill Peter, maybe even reconnect with Harry, but he hadn’t anticipated just how strong the Ministry’s reaction would be to his escape. He was so lost in his thoughts of what to do about the current situation that he didn’t even notice the young woman walking up to him until she was already in the clearing. “Hello Sirius.” She said, smiling. Sirius whirled around and bared his fangs at her, surprise taking over. “Oh, I suppose that was rather rude of me. Let’s try that again, shall we? Hello Mr. Black.” Sirius blinked in surprise. He couldn’t remember anybody calling him Mr. Black since he graduated Hogwarts.

 The woman sat down in front of him, still smiling. “Now then, we’re at a bit of a crossroads, so I’ll let you choose what we do. Do you want to stay out her in the Forest, or would you rather come into the castle with me?” Sirius stared at her. “Oh, right, I haven’t introduced myself. I’m Professor Maria Evans, I teach History of Magic now that Binns has moved on, though this is my first year.” Sirius frowned. He supposed that there wasn’t really that much of a choice. If he didn’t go with her, she could easily rat him out regardless. He knew the castle better than anyone except possibly Dumbledore, so hiding would be easier inside probably, especially since he knew the Headmaster would never allow Dementors in the castle. Maria stood up and headed towards the school. Sirius stared after her, and then followed.

“Oh good, I was hoping you’d follow.” Maria said happily as she pulled out her invisibility cloak. “Now, Remus Lupin is a teacher here, and he might know you’re you if he sees you, so I’m going to have to put this on you. It’s very old, so try not to rip it, okay?” Sirius nodded, and Maria carefully draped the cloak over him, then turned around and opened the doors.

They got to Maria’s office without incident, and she removed the cloak after casting the necessary spells on the office. “This way.” She said, leading him into the phone booth. Sirius turned back into his human form after Maria closed the doors and looked around curiously.

“You’ve enchanted it to be dimensionally transcendental.” He said, nodding appreciatively. “Though I must confess, I’m at a loss as to why you would do so.” Maria shrugged.

“Well, Binns was teaching since the 18th century, so there weren’t really any quarters for a History of Magic Professor. And I travel a lot, so I already had this ready.”

“But why a phone booth? Why not a tent?” Sirius asked. Normally the only things wizards made dimensionally transcendental were tents, as it was easier to do so with something made of some form of fabric then it was with metal or wood.

“This was actually more convenient. You see, I spend a lot of time in London, so the it blends in better than a tent. I mean, I’ve enchanted it so that muggles don’t see it, but wizards might question a tent in the middle of a city. Plus, tents are always in weird shapes, so that limits the places I’d be able to keep it in. This phone booth, on the other hand, is a rectangle and can fit practically anywhere. Now, I’m sure you have plenty of other questions, but I’m tired, and I’m sure you’ll want to sleep in a bed for once, so they’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” Sirius raised an eyebrow as Maria pulled out a hip flask and took a deep swig.

“Can I have some?” He asked.

“Sorry, this is actually medicine; I just keep it in this so I can always have it with me. I’ll make sure there’s some alcohol in your room though.” She told him, snapping her fingers. Sirius blinked in surprise as a door appeared, one that had not been there before, then sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He was tired, too tired to ask questions. He’d just have to wait and question her tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Three

                Maria woke up, drained the rest of her hip flask, put her contacts in, and jumped a foot in the air when she realized that Sirius was standing in front of her. “Don’t do that!” She yelled, glaring at him. The older man shrugged, though he did have the decency to look somewhat apologetic.

                “Sorry, I’ve never been good at being patient though and you said you’d answer my questions. And quite frankly, I’ve got a lot of them.” Maria sighed and leaned back in her bed, resting her head against the wall. It was a good thing that today was a Saturday and she didn’t have any classes, because otherwise there’d be some problems.

                “Fine, shoot.”

                “Why do you trust me?” Sirius demanded. Maria smiled inwardly. Trust Sirius to get to the most important question first.

                “Simply put, I’m a historian, with my focus being on the war with To…Voldemort. And quite frankly, your case has always baffled me. First of all, you were the Potter’s best friend. Hell, they made you their son’s godfather, and you’d lived with them for years, alternating between their house and Professor Lupin’s. And yet, none of them noticed that you were Death Eater and had the Dark Mark? I find that highly unlikely. Moreover, if you were really a Death Eater and betrayed the Potters, that would make you an integral part in the most important mystery of recent years-the defeat of Voldemort. And yet, you weren’t put on trial or interrogated? That makes no sense. At the very least they would have forced Veritaserum down your throat and questioned you, the death of Voldemort was too big to just leave it alone like that.”

                “And your conclusion?” Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow. He had to admit, he’d never thought of it quite like that.

                “Death Eater conspiracy. There are plenty of former Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy among them, with enough money to influence the courts. Most likely they bribed Crouch and anybody else to not ask too many questions so that the real spy wouldn’t be outed.”

                “Alright, next question. How did you recognize me?” Maria shrugged.

                “I went through school records and the school newspaper from back then. Apparently they discontinued it in your last year, something about the press only printing swear words?” Sirius grinned. “Anyway, yeah, I went through the old records for your years when I was looking into the whole mess. You weren’t nearly as subtle as you thought you were. There are several mentions in the paper of people noticing a stag and a giant dog wandering the grounds every month. I assume you were keeping Professor Lupin company, and that Peter Pettigrew’s animal form was just so small that they didn’t notice him. Now, I didn’t know whether you were the dog or the stag, but then you escaped. Dementors don’t do a good job of sensing animals, which meant you’d escaped in animal form. I don’t care how starved you are, a stag can’t fit through the bars of one of those doors. So that meant you were the dog.”

                “And you just happened to come across me?” Sirius asked skeptically.

                “Dumbledore told the staff that there was a highly likely chance of you coming here, so I’d taken to going on walks around the grounds every night looking for you. Believe it or not, there aren’t that many dogs in the Forbidden Forest. I used a tracking spell as well.” Sirius looked at her contemplatively, as if he was wondering whether or not to take her words at face value or not. Fortunately for her, she’d had years to work on her BS skills, so she was confident that he would have no more luck at figuring out that she was lying through her teeth than Dumbledore had.

                “Alright then, final question about the past. Do you know who the spy was?”

                “Well, there are only two real options, aren’t there? Professor Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Having met Professor Lupin I can say that I sincerely doubt he was the spy. He’s not the type, and you can tell that he’s incredibly glad to be somewhere where he isn’t under constant scrutiny and fear. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize being able to feel like that, and I have no doubt the Potters were just as kind to him as Dumbledore. That leaves Peter Pettigrew who, based on what you muttered in your sleep about ‘he’s at Hogwarts’ is living here in his animal form.”

                “Good, now that that’s established, let me out of this box, will you? The door’s locked.”

                “And it’s going to stay locked until you make the Unbreakable Vow with me that you will not even attempt to kill Peter Pettigrew until I say so.”

                “What?” Sirius growled, glaring at her. Maria raised a hand.

                “Look there are things you don’t know about the situation, but those aren’t important right now. What is important are two things. First and foremost, Harry is a great kid with a crappy life who deserves better. He needs a connection to his family, and you can provide that. But if you go and kill Peter right now, you’ll never be able to do that, because nobody will believe you when you try and tell them the truth.”

                “Nobody will believe it if I tell them before I kill him. Death Eater conspiracy, remember?” Sirius pointed out.

                “But this time we’re not trying to convince a full court. At the end of the day, we only need Dumbledore and Fudge. And while Fudge can be bribed, at the end of the day he depends far more on Dumbledore, and _he_ can’t be bribed.”

                “What’s the second reason?” Sirius asked slowly. Maria let out a small sigh of relief. He was still clearly unhappy, but at least he wasn’t as angry anymore.

                “What if you botch the job and Peter escapes? There are three ways that could end. The first, and least likely, option is that he’ll just run away and hide again. Sadly, he knows you can recognize him, and that you managed to escape Azkaban and find him, so that’s unlikely. The second option is that he decides to kill Harry. He hasn’t hurt him or anyone else since becoming a…whatever he is.” Maria looked at Sirius, pretending that she didn’t know the answer.

                “A rat.” Sirius told her.

                “Right, which means…he belongs to Harry’s friend Ron, doesn’t he? You must have seen him on the front page of the Daily Prophet, when they took that picture of the Weasleys.” Sirius nodded, impressed. “Well, that means that he’s had even more chances to attack Harry, but hasn’t acted on them, probably because he has no reason to remain loyal to Voldemort. If you push him far enough though, that’s likely to change. And the third option is, well, once again I need to go on a tangent. Voldemort has attacked the school twice in the past two years.”

                “What?” Sirius spluttered, looking shocked.

                “Well, attacked may be too strong of a word.” Maria said thoughtfully. “Two years ago he possessed the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Quirrell, and tried to regain a body, only to be stopped by Harry and his friends. The second time a fragment of his soul opened the Chamber of Secrets and tried to regain a body. Since Peter’s posing as a pet of one of Harry’s friends, he probably already knows all about this, so he knows that Voldemort’s alive and hiding somewhere in Eastern Europe. Which leaves us with the third option. He goes and finds Voldemort and ends up helping Voldemort regain a body. I think we both agree that that’s something we don’t want.”

                “No. No we don’t.” Sirius said firmly, nodding. “But that raises yet another question. How the hell does that man keep coming back? How is he still alive?”

                “The nearest I can figure, Horcruxes.” Maria told him. Sirius frowned thoughtfully.

                “That sounds familiar.” He said slowly.

                “A Horcrux is a piece of a soul.” Maria told him. “You see, when somebody kills another person, it tears the soul apart. A sufficiently powerful wizard or witch can take advantage of that moment of instability and tear off a chunk of their soul, then place it in a container to keep it safe. From what I can tell, he went through one when the Killing Curse he fired at Harry rebounded, and when the Diary containing the piece of his soul that opened the Chamber of Secrets was destroyed, it destroyed the Horcrux.”

                “So he made at least two.” Sirius repeated, sounding horrified.

                “Yes. If I had to guess, I’d say he probably made seven.”

                “Seven?”

                “It’s the most magically powerful number after all. In for a penny in for a pound and all that.” Maria said with a shrug. She had to admit, after a certain point in time the Horcruxes had ceased to horrify or disgust her and simply become a fact of her life.

                “Does Dumbledore know?” Sirius asked.

                “Probably. I mean, this is all conjecture, I don’t have 100% proof, but it is the most likely answer.” She said. “Dumbledore has the same amount of information as I do, if not more. The odds of him not knowing, in fact, are incredibly slim.”

                “So, what do we do about it?” Sirius asked.

                “For now, nothing.” Maria told him.

                “Excuse me?”

                “The fact of the matter is that we can’t do anything. I have some suspicions based on research and guesses as to what the Horcruxes are, but I’m a teacher, I can’t just leave in the middle of the term. And you’re a wanted fugitive, you can’t exactly wander around the countryside investigating these things.”

                “I got from Azkaban to Hogwarts just fine, didn’t I?” Sirius demanded.

                “True, but you were incredibly lucky. The search for you has only gotten more intense with time, and security has increased. You’d need to do magic to destroy them, and that would require taking up your human form again. No, the best thing to do will be to wait until winter break and get your old house back into a state fit for human habitation.”

                “No.” Sirius snapped. “I am not going back to that…place.”

                “Why not? Your parents are dead now after all.” Maria said reasonably.

                “Maybe, but their spirit is still there, and so are their portraits. Besides, I hated growing up in that house, it represents everything I despise now. It would mean giving in to my parents after I swore to never go back.”

                “That’s one way of looking at it.” Maria said, nodding. “Or, you could view it as a way of spitting in their faces, taking the home of dark wizards and turning it into a place where good wizards can feel comfortable. Just imagine the looks on their faces if they saw people like Professor Lupin, the Weasleys, or Dumbledore walking around their house.” The corners of Sirius’s mouth twitched upwards, but otherwise he remained stone-faced. Maria decided to throw in the cheap shot. She needed an excuse to find the Locket after all. “Once your name is cleared, you and Harry are going to need a place to stay.” Sirius glared at her, though his face softened slightly.

                “I’ll think about it.” He said finally. “But what am I supposed to do till then?” He demanded.

                “I’ve got a theater, a game room, and a gym designed for both regular exercises and spell casting.” Maria told him. “And I’ve got a system I can hook up so you’ll be able to watch Harry play Quidditch.”

                “Well that all sounds great, but, remember, I don’t have a wand.” Sirius said dryly.

                “That’s no problem.” Maria told him, snapping. A second door appeared, and Maria hopped off the bed. Sirius frowned.

                “How many of these rooms do you have hidden away?” He demanded.

                “Lot’s.” Maria admitted.

                “Why don’t you just keep them all out? It can’t be easy to make all these rooms only appear when you want them to.”

                “I tried that. But it got really depressing having constant reminders of a the fact that I live alone in what amounts to a mansion. You’re the first person to ever spend the night in here.” She told him honestly, opening the door.

                “You need a boyfriend.” Sirius told her. Maria gave a humorless laugh as she walked towards the wardrobe in the center of the room. It was, in fact, the only thing in the room.

                “Trust me, I’d have no use for a boyfriend.” Maria told him. Sirius frowned in confusion, then his eyes widened as Maria opened the doors revealing a display case holding twenty wands, with others attached to the doors and more in the drawers below.

                “What the…?”

                “It’s a family tradition to keep all our ancestors wands when they die, just in case we should ever need them. They’re dead after all, so you should have no problem using whatever one you want.” Sirius frowned thoughtfully, considering all the wands on display, then took an 11 inch apple wood wand that, according to the little plaque, had a dragon heartstring core.

                “Thanks.” He said, giving the wand a few experimental waves.

                “It’s no problem.” Maria said with a shrug, closing the wardrobe. “By the way, once you get cleared, if you try and hook me up with Professor Lupin, I’ll kill you.”

                “Don’t worry, I have the feeling he’ll think he’s too old for you.” Sirius said, pocketing the wand. This time Maria’s laugh was genuine.

                “Yes, that’s the only problem with that situation.” She said. Sirius raised an eyebrow, but decided to drop it.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Four

                “Harry?” Hermione asked with a frown, looking at him. She and Ron, along with the rest of the class had hurried out of Professor Evans’ classroom after packing up, but he was staying behind.

                “I just need to ask Professor Evans a few questions.” Harry reassured her. She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, walking out with Ron instead. It had taken some time, but Hermione had come around to Professor Evans, though she’d been rather shocked the first time the young woman had pulled out her hip flask of medicine during class. Harry briefly wondered what kind of disease she had that required her to drink a hip flask’s worth of potion seemingly every day, then shook his head. It wasn’t his place to pry, and he had a far more relevant question to ask.

                “Professor?” He asked tentatively. The woman looked up from the papers she’d been going over, and Harry was struck with the realization that her eyes were the exact same shade of green as his.

                “Yes Harry?” She asked, smiling.

                “Your specialty is the war with Voldemort, right?”

                “More or less, yeah. Why?”

                “Well, it’s just that people, especially Malfoy, keep making hints that I should be mad at Sirius Black, that I should want revenge. I don’t know what that means, and I don’t trust Malfoy to tell me the truth. So I thought that if anybody would be able to tell me what was going on, it’d be the History of Magic Professor.” Professor Evans froze, then sighed.

                “How much time do you have Harry?” She asked slowly.

                “I’ve got an hour or so until my next class.” He told her, surprised by her reaction.

                “Alright, shut the door, then sit down. This will take a while.” Harry nodded and quickly shut the door, glad to be getting more than cryptic hints. “Okay, first off a little background.” She told him once he’d sat down on a desk. “I assume you don’t know what the Fidelius Charm is?” He shook his head, and she nodded. “Right then. The Fidelius is one of the most powerful defensive spells in existence, and, if done right, is almost impossible to break. There are really only two ways to break it. You see, what the spell does is make it impossible for someone to find a certain building or other dwelling. You could, in fact, cast the charm on a tent or even a Phone Booth. You could be staring right at the building in question but never see it _unless_ , and this is important here, the Secret Keeper told you about it. The Secret Keeper,” She told Harry, cutting off his next question. “Is the person responsible for keeping the charm intact. It works like a magical contract in a way. You see, the Secret Keeper is the only person who automatically knows the location of the dwelling. So, the only way for someone to find out a the location of the building under the protection of the Fidelius Spell is for the Secret Keeper to tell them its location.”

                “And my parents used the Fidelius Charm on their house?” Harry asked slowly, starting to see where this was going. Professor Evans nodded. “But…you said that there were two ways to break it. What’s the other way?”

                “Well, theoretically, a wizard or witch that was powerful enough could break it with sheer magical power, but the only person known who could do that was Merlin, the most powerful wizard of all time. Even Dumbledore and Tom couldn’t do it. But anyway, back on topic.”

                “Sirius Black was my parents’ Secret Keeper, wasn’t he?” Harry asked. The woman sighed.

                “This is where things get fuzzy. Yes, to the best of most historians’ knowledge, Black was your parents’ Secret Keeper. The problem is that nobody has ever come right out and said so, and even if they did we’d have no way of knowing if they were telling the truth or not.”

                “Why wouldn’t Black say something?” Harry growled. “He had to have known it was over, right? Voldemort was dead!”

                “Ah, but that’s the other problem.” She told him. “You see, nobody ever asked him. After they caught him, they immediately threw him in Azkaban without trial or interrogation. So, unfortunately, we have no idea if he really was the Secret Keeper, or if he switched with someone else. In all honesty, it seems a bit fishy to me that nobody thought to ask him, seeing as there are potions that can force somebody to tell the truth no matter what, but there you go. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you much more, but I was too young to have fought during the war myself, and my parents died in the war, so I can’t ask them if they knew anything.”

                “I understand. Thank you for telling me the truth Professor.” He said as he left, looking thoughtful. Maria let out a sigh of relief once he was gone. Everything she’d told him was true, after a fashion. She didn’t want to bring herself under the scrutiny of Dumbledore yet, so she’d been forced to leave all the stuff about Peter out. At least she’d been able to cast some doubt on the whole thing. With any luck Harry wouldn’t jump to any conclusions, and he’d be more receptive of the truth when he learned it. She couldn’t (well, wouldn’t to be truthful) stop him from overhearing the conversation between Madam Rosmerta, Fudge, and the other Professors, but she thought she’d covered everything they had, so that should end up fine.

_Three weeks later_

                Maria sat nervously in the stands of the Quidditch Pitch. She hated dealing with Dementors. Her past had always been worse than most people’s, but it had only gotten worse, to the point that now she had to cast a cheering charm on herself whenever she needed to cast a Patronus, because, for whatever reason, the Patronus spell didn’t seem to consider dying or fulfilling her life’s goal to be sufficiently happy thoughts. As it was, she was going to have nightmares tonight. Ah well, nothing for it. The problem was that, in the end, she couldn’t do nearly as much as she’d like to. Harry needed to lose this match (which was, oddly enough, still against the Hufflepuffs. Apparently Malfoy had ‘accidentally’ shrunk some of the bones in his arm. She had to admire his dedication to cheating at least.) and faint so that he’d be properly motivated to start learning how to cast the Patronus Charm. With luck he wouldn’t need it this year, but it would be vital in the years to come. She sighed and got ready to spring into action.

                Maria tried her best to pay attention to the match, but it didn’t work. The image of black living cloaks sweeping into the area always filled her mind’s eye whenever she let her mind wander. It may have been because of these melancholy thoughts that she felt the Dementors’ presence long before anyone else did, even Dumbledore. She acted fast, casting a cheering charm on herself and summoning Harry’s broom to her as he fell, then whirled to face the Dementors. “Expecto Patronum!” She yelled, pointing her wand at the Dementors.

                Dumbledore, furious at this intrusion by the Dementors, quickly cast several charms to both slow Harry and cushion his fall, then turned to unleash his anger on the Dementors. To his surprise however, someone else had already cast a Patronus, which appeared to be in the form of a full grown African Elephant Bull. He scanned the crowd, and his eyes quickly fell on the young History of Magic Professor, who was doing an admirable job of keeping so many Dementors at bay, but was starting to sway violently. He quickly cast his own patronus, a Phoenix, and then headed towards the Dementors to force them to leave more personally.

                Maria saw the Phoenix patronus of Dumbledore join hers and let out a sigh of relief, letting her patronus disappear once she felt Dumbledore was close enough to handle it. She hated fighting Dementors because, in the end, it didn’t matter how powerful you were, or how old, or anything else. Dementors forced you to relive every bad thing that had ever happened to you, somehow even dragging up the memories you’d had when you were only 1 year old. There really was no defense against them except for a Patronus, which ironically required happy thoughts. Unfortunately for her, the charm was very specific when it came to happy thoughts. It wanted true, pure happiness, and she hadn’t felt that in…well, a very long time. The memories hadn’t faded, she clung to them far too tightly, but there had been a lot of bad times since then. In the end, she was just glad she hadn’t fainted.

_Twenty minutes later_

                “You know, it’s a good thing you’re not a teenager.” Dear said as Maria walked inside the Phone Booth.

                “I know.” Maria said, hanging up her cloak on the rack, then going over to grab another hip flask. “If I was, everybody would be mother henning me and trying to make sure I was okay.”

                “That’s not what I meant. Quite frankly, it’d probably be a good thing for someone to fuss over you.”

                “That’s what you’re for.” Maria reminded her, draining the hip flask in one go.

                “Yes, but you can always just leave when you get tired of me fussing over you. You wouldn’t be able to escape Madam Pomfrey without resorting to hexing her.” Maria just rolled her eyes and turned to examine her medicine cabinet. She was running low on her ‘medicine’. She’d have to make more soon.

                “It’s talking.” Sirius said, sounding surprised. Maria turned to look at him.

                “What?” She asked.

                “It’s talking.” He repeated. “Your box.” He clarified when Maria continued to look at him in confusion.

                “She.” Maria corrected. “She’s talking.”

                “…You enchanted your home to be sentient.” Sirius said after a moment of silence.

                “I got lonely. It helped to have somebody to talk to, somebody to bounce ideas off of.” Maria said with a shrug. She supposed that, from a certain point of view, it was pretty weird, but she didn’t care. She was enough of a mess as it was, she didn’t want to know what she’d be like if there had never been anybody to talk to.

                “Yeah, it’s official.” Sirius said. “You need a boyfriend.”

                “Excuse me?”

                “Your best friend is your home.” Sirius said flatly. “That’s not healthy. Once we get my name cleared, I’m going to find you a boyfriend.” Maria stared at him for a long while.

                “Subtly is lost on you, isn’t it?” She finally said. “How many times have I told you that I’d kill you if you tried to hook me up with a guy?” Sirius smirked.

                “I always did love a challenge.” He said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. Maria sighed in resignation.

                “Sirius, I’m gay.” She told him dryly. Sirius stared at her for a moment.

                “What?”

                “I’m gay. A lesbian. A girl that likes other girls. Do I need to make this any clearer?” She asked.

                “Alright then. You need a girlfriend.” Sirius said, shrugging. Maria blinked.

                “Nothing fazes you, does it?” She muttered. Sirius smirked again.

                “I just spent the last twelve years in Azkaban. I’m going to find enjoyment wherever I can.”

                “I don’t need a girlfriend Sirius.” Maria growled.

                “I think it’s a good idea.” Dear said, sounding far too happy.

                “I said, I don’t need a girlfriend!” Maria snapped, turning around and storming out of the box, intent on seeing if she could get some food from the kitchens after she returned the Nimbus 2000 to Harry.

                “She’s going to do that whenever she doesn’t like what we’re saying, isn’t she?” Sirius said, staring after her.

                “Experience says yes.” Dear said sadly.

_One hour later_

                “Hello Harry.” Maria said carefully, walking into the Hospital Wing with Harry’s broom slung over her shoulder. Harry looked up.

                “Hermione told me that you saved my broom.” He said, smiling in relief as he took it from her.

                “Yeah. Sorry, I would have returned it sooner, but Madam Pomfrey said there were too many people visiting you as it was.” She said with a shrug, then turned around to leave.

                “Why?” Harry muttered, staring down at the sheets. Maria stopped, but he didn’t seem to notice that she was even there. “Why do they affect me like that? Am I just…?”

                “It has nothing to do with weakness.” Maria said sharply. Harry looked up at her in confusion. “Dementors feed on happiness. When they do so, they leave you with nothing but the worst moments of your life, forcing you to relive them. Your past is far worse than that of most people’s and, as a result, the memories they drag up are worse. Anybody would have fallen off their broom.”

                “Hermione said that you kept the Dementors away until Dumbledore could force them to leave.” Harry said suddenly. “She said you made some kind of white elephant appear.” Maria nodded.

                “That’s what’s known as the Patronus Charm. I’m afraid, however, that I can’t teach it to you.”

                “Why not? I need to know how to cast it! If the Dementors show up at another match, I need to be able to keep myself from fainting!” Harry said anxiously.

                “I’m not fit to teach anybody spells, especially not that one. You see, the Patronus Charm requires happy thoughts to cast, and I have to cast a cheering charm on myself to pull that off. Besides, I never learned how to teach spells, just history. If you’re serious about learning this spell, I’d recommend you talk to Professor Lupin. He is the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher after all, and you don’t get much darker than Dementors.” Maria told him. Harry nodded, looking thoughtful, and Maria left him to his thoughts.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Five

                “You lied to me.” Harry said accusingly once everybody else had left the History of Magic Classroom. Maria blinked.

                “What?” She asked, confused.

                “Well, you didn’t tell me everything.” Harry corrected. “A lie of omission.” Maria stiffened slightly, starting to get worried.

                “Didn’t tell you everything about what?” She asked warily.

                “About Sirius Black. You never told me that he was my father’s best friend growing up, or that he’s my Godfather.”

                “He’s your Godfather?” Maria repeated, pretending to be surprised by this revelation.

                “Yes! And even if you didn’t know that, why didn’t you bring up the whole ‘best friends’ bit?” Harry demanded.

                “Harry, I’m not your parents’ biographer, nor am I Sirius’. I knew what I knew because of specific research I did in relation to the defeat of Tom Riddle. I did not do research into your parents’ school days, so I didn’t know. But really, I don’t know why you’re so shocked. Regardless of whether or not Sirius was in fact your parents’ Secret Keeper, do you think anybody would have believed he was if they didn’t know and trust each other? Of course not.” Harry grimaced and looked down at the ground, embarrassed.

                “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. I was just so upset, I guess I haven’t really been thinking clearly.” He said apologetically. Maria waved him off.

                “Don’t worry about it. My advice is to go and talk to Ron and Hermione and tell them everything, if you haven’t already.” She told him. “Bottling this stuff up is not healthy.” Harry nodded his thanks and left the classroom, looking thoughtful. Maria smiled, then frowned as her two way mirror with Dear went off. Normally she only used it in emergencies, or when she needed to travel quickly, but recently Dear had begun using it to talk to her in between classes. Maria blamed Sirius.

                “Hypocrite.” Dear said simply, sounding amused.

                “What are you talking about?” Maria asked, genuinely confused, again.

                “Telling Harry not to bottle things up.”

                “I do not bottle things up.” Maria protested. “I vent all the time!”

                “Fighting doesn’t count. You’re right, bottling everything up isn’t healthy, especially at your age.”

                “I really don’t think you’re old enough to be lecturing me about these things.” Maria growled.

                “Please. You’re only twenty two years older than me.” Dear said, her tone giving Maria the distinct impression of someone rolling their eyes. Maria blinked, not sure what that was supposed to mean.

                “What are you talking about?”

                “You may have only given me a voice a few centuries ago, but I’ve always been there, watching you and listening to you. You were there when I was born, and the I’ll always be there for you.” Dear told her gently. Maria blinked again, then gave a small smile.

                “Thank you.”

                “No problem. That doesn’t mean you can get away with never getting a girlfriend again though.” Maria scowled.

                “You just had to go and ruin the moment, didn’t you?” She growled.

                “It’s not healthy to be alone for so long.”

                “I have you.” Maria pointed out.

                “You need someone without a mute button.” Dear clarified. Maria rolled her eyes.

                “I’ve got to get ready for my next class.” She said, shrinking the mirror and putting it back in her pocket.

_Two weeks later_

                “How exactly do you plan on getting Dear to Grimmauld place?” Sirius called from inside the Phone Booth. Maria looked up from where she was packing up the last of her things for Christmas Break.

                “The same way I travel anywhere.” She said, pulling the last piece of baggage into the box and shutting the doors, then clapping her hands. Sirius jumped back as a large, circular metal…console of sorts rose up from the floor. “Stand back, I don’t want to accidentally end up inside a mountain.” She told him, flipping several switches as she walked around the console and pressing a few more buttons, then grabbed the set of bike handles protruding from the top of the console. She closed her eyes and concentrated, then let go. “Okay, we’re there.” She said happily.

                “Wait, what? How…did you just Apparate the whole box into my house?” Sirius demanded, looking stunned.

                “Pretty much.” Maria said with a shrug. “It’s not that difficult, it only takes a few amplifier spells. And remember, technically I’m just Apparating a phone booth, not a huge house.” Sirius gave her a strange look.

                “That takes a lot of magic regardless. What’s in that medicine of yours?”

                “This that and the other thing.” Maria said with a shrug. “I don’t make it, I just buy it.” She lied, pulling out the hip flask and draining it. “I suppose I’ve always had an abnormally high amount of magic, but it’s come rather handy over time. For instance, I know how to undo a Permanent Sticking Charm.” Sirius grinned at the implications of such an ability.

                “Shall we go evict my mother from the house?” He asked, opening the door and giving her a little bow, as if he were the doorman at a high class hotel.

                “Indeed we shall.” Maria said with a laugh, stepping out and into the house. She’d landed Dear right in the front hall, just in front of the front door. Sirius looked around and raised an eyebrow at her.

                “You managed to Apparate inside?”

                “I’ve found most wards don’t seem to take into account the possibility of something not human Apparating in and out. It’s why House Elves can travel around so easily.” Sirius scowled, probably remembering Kreacher. “Relax Sirius, I learned a few things about your family that, once I confirm them, need to be addressed.” She told him. She wasn’t particularly fond of the old House Elf, but he did deserve better than the way they’d treated him. Sirius gave her an odd look, but nodded in acceptance. The great thing about posing as a historian, she’d discovered, was that people tended to more readily accept your knowledge of things you technically shouldn’t know about, since you did research into the past. Sirius strode down the hall to the largest painting as Maria proceeded to cast silencing charms on all the portraits she could see, then Muffliato on where she knew the portrait of Phineas was. No point in alerting Dumbledore to what was going on.

                “Wakey wakey, you old bat.” Sirius said gleefully, ripping the curtains off the walls and revealing the portrait of his mother.

                “Yoooou!” she howled, her eyes popping at the sight of Sirius. “Blood traitor, abomination, shame of my flesh!”

                “Oh be quiet.” Sirius said, smirking, as Maria walked and dragged her wand along the edge of the portrait. “You really should be glad I’m letting you talk at all, I could cast a silencing spell on you after all. I just figured this would be so much sweeter if I could hear you protesting.”

                “What are you…How dare you?” Mrs. Black roared as Maria let the portrait fall to the ground.

                “Quite easily it turns out.” Sirius said calmly as he and Maria picked the portrait up and turned it so it was on its side and made their way back to Dear. “You should feel honored Mother. The other portraits are just going in the garbage. You’re the only one we’re going to be burning.”

                “Oh, is that what we’re doing?” Maria asked. “You never did tell me. I figured we’d use a sticking charm to attach some anvils and drop her in the ocean.” Sirius considered it, and then shook his head.

                “Tempting, but no. This’ll be much more permanent, and it’ll make me feel better. Less of a chance of someone saving her this way after all.” Maria blinked.

                “Wait, there’s a chance someone’ll save her? Who do you think is going to break into the house, and then break into Dear, just to save your mother’s portrait?”

                “That’s not what I meant.” Sirius said, rolling his eyes as the two came to a stop.

                “Maybe not, but that’s what it sounded like.” Maria said with a smirk before removing a hand from the picture frame and snapping her fingers, making another door appear. “Barbecue room.” She said in answer to Sirius’ questioning look. “Figured it’d save us the extra trip.”

                “Good thinking. You hear that Mother? You’re not even going in the fireplace, you’re going in a pit where meat gets cooked.” 

                “Hm. You know, I don’t think I actually have a fireplace.” Maria said thoughtfully. “That’s a pretty big oversight. I mean, how is Santa supposed to get in without a chimney?” Sirius stared at her, not sure whether or not she was serious, and decided that he probably didn’t want to know.

                “Stop it this instance you filth! I am Walburga Black, of the most ancient and noble house of Black!” The two ignored the screams of the portrait as they lit the fire for the pit, and then unceremoniously tossed the portrait into the flames, Sirius smirking in satisfaction. Once the thing had been consumed by the flames, Maria dusted her hands off and turned to Sirius.

                “Can you handle the cleanup of the house by yourself for an hour?” She asked.

                “What? You’re leaving already?” Sirius asked, surprised. “But you haven’t even met my dear old dad yet.” Maria rolled her eyes.

                “I think you can handle being on your own for an hour. I just need to check on something by myself, and no, bringing you along would only complicate things. I already cast Muffliato on the room containing Phineas’ portrait, so you should be fine there. Just order Kreacher not to tell anybody that you’re there, and not to leave the house, and you should be fine.” Sirius sighed.

                “Horcrux hunting?” Maria shrugged.

                “More or less.” Sirius rolled his eyes.

                “Fine. I’ll go see if I can’t find that blasted House Elf before he leaves the house to snitch on me.” He said, resigned, as he left the phone booth. Maria waited a second to make sure that he wasn’t going to come back in, then snapped her fingers, locking the doors.

                “Were the bicycle handles really necessary?” Dear asked as Maria set about fiddling with the dials and switches on the control console.

                “I’ve already raised enough questions as it is.” Maria replied. “Best to downplay my power as much as possible.”

                “Yeah, you might have blown your cover when you forced your way past the Hogwarts wards so quickly even Dumbledore didn’t notice.” Dear said dryly as Maria hit the last button, sending them off to the cave. Maria shrugged.

                “I’m fairly certain he bought my little white lie.”

                “You told him something that was so completely different from the truth it didn’t resemble it one bit. That’s not a little white lie; it’s a huge black lie.”

                “I don’t think that’s an actual term.” Maria said thoughtfully, grabbing her cloak and putting it on. “If you want, I’ll try and make it one next time though.”

                “That might be a little too much interference.” Maria laughed.

                “The universe hasn’t stopped us yet. I doubt it’ll start caring if we try to make a phrase popular.”

                “Better safe than sorry.” Dear reminded her.

                “Only sometimes.” Maria called over her shoulder as she left the box. She’d landed Dear just outside the cave entrance, rather than inside it, or even on the island containing the fake Locket. It meant she’d have to cut herself, and take the boat across, but she didn’t want to risk alerting Voldemort. The man’s powers always seemed to vary in strength, so she couldn’t be sure if he’d notice or not. Like she’d told Dear, there were times when it really was better to be safe and err on the side of caution. She conjured up a knife, made an incision on her left forearm, pressed it against the rock, and then healed her wound before stepping inside the cave. A quick glance around told her that nothing too drastic had changed this time around, though she thought some of the stalagmites and stalactites were different. Reassured, she headed for where the boat and its chain were, and she grabbed it, pulling the boat up to her.

                Maria slowly stepped into the boat, wary. The boat used its passenger’s magical power, and that could be a problem. She remembered one time where she’d been in a hurry and hadn’t properly restrained herself, and the boat had exploded due to overload. And of course, it had happened the one time the real Locket was still in the cave. Fortunately she had much better control, and nothing bad happened. Admittedly, at one point in time crossing a lake full of inferi would have counted as something bad, but at this point she was too jaded to care much. The only problem here would be the potion containing the Locket, and even then that wasn’t too much of a problem. It used to be, but she’d figured out the antidote for the potion about a hundred years ago, so she should be able to take care of herself. She really didn’t want to drink the stuff simply to get a fake Horcrux, but there wasn’t any way around it. The basin needed to be drained on the off chance that Dumbledore jumped the gun, and so that Kreacher wouldn’t betray Sirius when the time came.

                Maria climbed out of the boat and onto the island, conjuring a clear red plastic swirly straw as she did so. She could use a conjured goblet, she knew, but she didn’t feel like taking this seriously. If she was going to play along with Voldemort’s games, it would be on her terms. She paused once she reached the basin however. This was always the worst part. Well, this and Dementors. So, she decided to do what all great people do when they don’t want to do something. Procrastinate. She waved her wand over the potion, deciding to try and siphon it out onto the rocks. It was futile, she knew. She’d tried it several times before inventing the antidote. But she really hated that potion.

                As a result, she was genuinely shocked to see the potion following her wand up into the air. Maria blinked, but decided to go with her good fortune. Apparently this Voldemort was rather sloppy, though depending on when he’d set up his protections, he may have been in a hurry. Either way, she wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and she pocketed the swirly straw with her free hand. There was no way she was going to waste a perfectly good swirly straw after all. Once the potion was siphoned away she grabbed the locket, turned around, and got back into the boat in a significantly better mood than she’d expected.

                “Why are you so much happier than usual?” Dear asked in surprise. Maria always came back in a somber mood when she retrieved the locket, but the enchantments on the cave always prevented her from watching to see what was going on.

                “I was able to siphon the potion out of the basin this time. Voldemort must have been sloppy this time around.”

                “Maria…when was the last time you tried to siphon the potion out of the basin?” Maria thought for a moment, and then shrugged.

                “I don’t remember. I think you were talking then, but I’m not certain.”

                “Well, a wizard or witch’s magic does get stronger with age; maybe you’ve just gotten to the point where you can muscle through Voldemort’s spells.”

                “Well that’ll make things boring.” Maria complained. “I mean, I don’t want things to be too dangerous or anything, that’d make my job even harder, but if I can just power through everything, then this’ll get tedious.”

                “I’m sure there’ll still be things you can’t do. You can’t Apparate inside Hogwarts yet after all.” Dear assured her, sounding exasperated. Maria got the distinct impression that, if she could, she’d be rolling her eyes right now.

                “One can only hope.” Maria said, nodding. “Now, let’s go make sure Sirius didn’t do anything stupid.”


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Six

                “May I ask why you’re tearing this room apart?” Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow. Maria tossed him the locket she’d taken from the cave.

                “This one’s a fake. There’s a note inside though, and I think you’ll find it quite interesting.” She said, before turning to contemplate the glass fronted cabinets. She thought they’d been in there, but she wasn’t certain, so she’d gone through the room systematically. She’d also made some adjustments to the family tree, restoring Sirius, his Uncle Alphard, and Andromeda, as well as adding Ted Tonks and Tonks, then burned off the Malfoys and Sirius’ parents. She left Bellatrix though, and hoped Sirius wouldn’t say anything. She had her own plans for the woman, provided everything else went according to her plans.

                “Is this real?” Sirius asked slowly, staring at the paper in shock. Maria shrugged.

                “I assume so. Your brother never really made it into the history books, so I can’t say for certain that it wasn’t faked, but it seems legit.” She said, opening the cabinet and quickly plucking out the real Horcrux.

                “But how…?”

                “Did he learn about the Horcruxes? I have no freaking idea, and I doubt we’ll ever know.”

                “That wasn’t exactly my question.” Sirius said slowly.

                “I don’t know how he managed to switch them out, but I know how we can find out. I’m going to need that locket back first though.” Sirius nodded and handed the locket to her. He kept the note however, carefully folding it and putting it in his pocket.  Maria looked at the fake locket, compared it to the Horcrux, and nodded to herself. “Okay, good. Now call Kreacher.” Sirius made a face but nodded.

                “Kreacher!” He said sharply. There was a ‘pop!’ and the wizened old House Elf appeared in the room. He gave Sirius a glare and bowed deeply to both of them. The last remaining Black had ordered him to remain silent unless he was answering a direct question from Sirius or Maria. “Maria has a question for you. You will answer her truthfully, and tell her everything she wishes to know. Nod if you understand.” Kreacher nodded and then turned to Maria, who crouched down to look him in the eye, then held up the two lockets.

                “Now Kreacher,” She began kindly. “I know that one of these is Voldemort’s, and one isn’t. Don’t worry; I know which is which as well. What I need to know is how they got switched. I need you to tell me everything Regulus did, everything that led to these lockets being switched.” Kreacher stared at her, wide eyed, then nodded and began to speak. Truth be told, Maria didn’t really need to hear all of this, having heard it hundreds of times before. But she couldn’t come up with a better way to tell Sirius about what his brother had done, since she wouldn’t have any real reason to know about it. Plus, it would help her get a handle on things, and it wouldn’t hurt to make sure things had turned out the way she was used to.

_Five minutes later_

                Sirius stared wide eyed as Kreacher finished his story. Maria stood up as Kreacher continued to sob and slipped the Black family locket into Sirius’ hands. “I’m going to go kill this thing. Do what you want with the fake Horcrux.” She whispered, leaving the room. Maria walked happily down the stairs, practically skipping at some points. The Diary and Diadem were already dead, and soon the Locket would be joining its ‘brothers’. Then she’d kill the Ring and Cup over the Easter Holidays, and everything would be set, since Nagini wasn’t a Horcrux yet and, if everything went according to plan, she never would be. That still left Harry, and she’d have to figure out a way to extract the Horcrux safely from him next year. She’d never tried to do things _this_ way before, usually starting around the 4 th or 5th year, so this was all new to her.

                “You’re happy.” Dear remarked as Maria walked inside and locked the door.

                “Of course I am. Once I kill this thing there’ll only be two Horcruxes left, and …you know what? Screw it, after we kill this thing let’s go get the cup. It’ll only take a minute after all.”

                “Are you sure?” Dear asked. Maria paused and rolled up her sleeves, inspecting both of her forearms.

                “Well, I’m not seeing any tally marks, so yeah.” She had a system in place in case she royally screwed things up, and it didn’t seemed to have been triggered at all this time, which made her immensely happy. She’d clearly gotten better at this, despite how long it’d been since she’d had to wing it. Maria opened the door to the ‘kill room’ and placed the Locket on the pedestal, grabbed the sword, and glared down at the Locket, steeling herself for the upcoming taunts. “ **Open** _._ ” She hissed. She’d lost the power to speak Parseltongue naturally a _long_ time ago, but she’d been able to relearn it over time. Of course, being a magical language, she’d never be as good as a natural speaker like Harry, but she knew enough.

                “Get it over with.” The head of Voldemort that rose from the open Locket hissed. Maria blinked. She really hadn’t expected that.

                “What?” She asked, baffled.

                “I am no fool. My offensive power is that of the mind, not the body. I cannot do anything to hurt you, but I can tell one thing for certain. I can sense the broken remnants of hundreds of my fellows. They all say the same thing. Flee from the Predator. Flee from the Bringer of Darkness. I will not cower before you.” The Horcrux growled. Maria smiled. She hadn’t known the Horcruxes had any remnants of their minds, but she was rather gratified by this new information. If they wanted to give her silly nicknames, oh well.

                “Very well. Goodbye. May you have nightmares for all eternity.” She said, swinging the sword down hard on the Locket and almost cleaving it in two. Maria had always hated the Locket more than any other of the Horcruxes. It had caused the most pain and suffering of all of them, and she suspected that, if it came down to it, it was Voldemort’s favorite. It underlined the Slytherin connection after all, and it had belonged to his family. She picked it up and carried it to the trophy room, then returned to the control console. She had to be careful about this next jump, even if it wasn’t a huge problem. Getting into Gringotts was delicate work. Well, getting in without being detected was. She could brute force her way in, but that would cause more problems than it solved.

                “Wait a minute.” Dear said slowly. “I thought you were going to give Dumbledore the Locket?” Maria paused, then glared at the top of the console.

                “Nice of you to remember that _now_ after I killed the thing. But don’t worry, I’ve already got that figured out. I was going to do that, but since Sirius is going to be living here, I couldn’t tell Dumbledore that I found the thing here. No, I’ll just give him the Ring after I killed it. I’d have more reason to be at the Gaunt shack anyways.”

                “And the Cup?”

                “I’m killing that of course. There’s no way I could justify breaking into the Lestrange vault at Gringotts, at least, not without giving everything away.”

                “Well, not everything.” Dear pointed out.

                “More or less.” Maria argued. “I’d have to explain why I was there, which would lead to how I know about Horcruxes, and then I’d have to explain how I was able to slip through Gringotts’ defenses, and at the point I might as well just come out with everything.”

                “Fair enough.” Dear conceded. “And I suppose handing over the ring will help perpetuate your proud tradition of always getting rid of the Ring instead putting any of them in the trophy room.” Maria glared again.

                “I can’t keep the Ring. It’s too risky, you know that.” She growled.

                “After all you’ve done, I don’t think anybody would begrudge you a little selfishness now and then.” Dear said kindly. Maria snorted.

                “It always starts out with ‘a little selfishness’, but it always ends as Voldemort.”

                “I seriously doubt that bringing her back for one conversation will result in you becoming the next Dark Lord.” Dear said dryly.

                “I don’t have the right to bring people back. They’re better off where they are.”

                “…She wouldn’t blame you.” Dear told her. “It’s not your fault.”

                “I know.” Maria said gruffly, making a few more adjustments to the console. There was a long pause.

                “She’d want you to move on, not mourn her for the rest of your life.”

                “How would you know?” Maria snapped. “You never met her!”

                “I’ve met other hers.” Dear replied.

                “Not really.” Maria said scornfully. “We never spend much time around her.”

                “I can still pick things up. Like the fact that she’d understand if you moved on. For the love of Hell Maria, it’s been…” Maria snarled and slammed her fist down on the mute button.

                “If I moved on, I’d be betraying her.” She snapped. “If I betray one person, it’d mean I can betray anyone. If I behaved selfishly once, it’d mean I’d be on the slippery slope of being a selfish bitch that only cares about herself. I have too much power, too great of a responsibility, and too much knowledge for me to allow any human weakness.” With that, she punched in the last button, and the phone booth disappeared from Number 12 Grimmauld place.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Seven

                Maria sighed and looked at her class, frowning slightly. The rest of Christmas break had gone uneventfully. After Sirius had given Kreacher the locket, the ancient House Elf had become far more helpful. Between the three of them, they’d managed to get the house into a state fit for human dwelling. Kreacher had even managed to clean Phineas’ room without the portrait of the former Headmaster noticing that anything was amiss. Sirius hadn’t been happy when Maria had told him he’d be staying behind at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, but Maria had worn him down by pointing out the amount of work the house still required, the fact that Hogwarts was surrounded by Dementors and therefore not safe, and by promising to fetch him when the time came to get revenge on Peter.

                The students stood up, and began to file out of the class, startling her back into the present. “Hermione? Could you stay after for a moment?”  The bushy haired girl frowned, but she nodded and set her bag down. “Relax, your grades are doing just fine. But…well, they’re slipping.” Hermione frowned in confusion.

                “But you just said that my grades were doing fine.” She said.

                “Well, by anyone else’s standards, yes they are. But by your standards, they’re not doing too great.” Hermione flushed.

                “Sorry Professor, it’s just, I’ve been so busy recently that…”

                “You’re exhausted.” Maria said simply. “You’re taking far too many classes to actually be able to do anything about them.”

                “I’m managing just fine.” Hermione said snappishly. “You just said that my grades were doing fine by anybody else’s standards.” Maria raised an eyebrow, and Hermione’s eyes widened in horror as she realized that she’d just snapped at a teacher.

                “I think you just proved my point.” Maria said dryly.

                “Well, it’s not like there’s anything I can do.” Hermione protested. “We’re already halfway through the year.” Maria smiled and conjured a piece of paper. She could have just kept it on her desk she knew, but little things like conjuring the paper seemed to impress the students more for whatever reason.

                “Well, I’ve checked your schedule, and you can easily drop Divination, Muggle Studies, and Ancient Runes and not hurt your chances of passing your finals at all.” Hermione frowned. She was already considering dropping Divination, and she had only decided to take Muggle Studies for fun, but…

                “Ancient Runes is important!” She protested. “It’s actually a practical class, unlike Divination!” Maria snorted.

                “I’m sorry, I just didn’t think I’d ever see a student try and keep Ancient Runes after taking the class for half a year.” She apologized at Hermione’s scandalized stare. “Seriously though, there are very few jobs in which Ancient Runes is useful. Let’s see, there’s Historian, Curse Breaker, and Ward Constructor. I mean, technically there’s archeology, but with magic it means that that’s pretty much the same job as a Historian, since I can go pretty much anywhere and do the excavating and the cleanup, and….well, anyways, back on topic. Arithmancy, on the other hand, can be damn useful, and Care of Magical Creatures can be lifesaving.” Hermione nodded, though she still looked conflicted. Maria decided to throw one more point in. “Hermione, can you honestly say that this is a practical choice? You’re pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion. There’s no way you can expect to remember everything you learn, which means you have a much lower chance of passing any of your finals, which will do considerable damage to your grades, considering how many classes you’re taking.

                “And it’s not just starting to cause problems on the academic level. You’re not getting enough sleep, and you’re starting to get irritable. I mean, you just snapped at a teacher! That’s not you.” Hermione nodded and stared at the ground dejectedly. “Hermione, none of your teachers will blame you.” Maria told her gently. “We were all informed of your time turner, and of how many classes you were taking. If anything, they’ll be impressed that you managed to make it this long. I know I am.” Hermione nodded slowly, but she didn’t look up. Maria smiled. “Let me tell you a secret.” She stage whispered. “You’re not the first student to attempt to take more classes than temporally possible using a Time Turner. But, you are the first one to even make to Christmas break.” Hermione looked up, startled, and Maria nodded.

                “Thank you Professor.” Hermione said, looking significantly happier.

                “Don’t worry about it.” She told the young girl, waving her off. “Just go to the classes you’ll be keeping, and I’ll tell Professor McGonagall about the changes.” Hermione nodded her thanks, grabbed her bags, and made to leave. “Oh, uh, Hermione?” The girl turned to face her. “Could you check to see if Lavender or Parvati are out there?” Hermione frowned, puzzled.

                “Did you want to talk to them too?” Maria quickly shook her head. Hermione was even more surprised at the almost scared look on Maria’s face.

                “No! No, no, no, no. I’m hiding from them.” Now Hermione was really baffled.

                “Why?”

                “I overheard them plotting to ask me about…girl problems.” Maria said.

                “You mean boys?” Hermione asked, confused.

                “Different set of problems.” Maria said with a wince. Hermione’s eyes widened as she realized what Maria was skating around.

                “But isn’t that usually Madam Pomfrey’s job?” Maria sighed.

                “Apparently they decided they’d rather ask a younger teacher.” Maria said sadly.

                “Alright, I’ll go check.” Hermione walked to the door and opened it, glancing out to either side. “All clear.” She announced. Maria let out a relieved sigh, and Hermione left, rolling her eyes slightly at the teacher’s theatrics. Maria shuddered, glad she’d overheard Parvati and Lavender talking the other day. Technically yes, she could have talked to them about… _things_ , but that would have been horrendously awkward. She’d had to be given ‘the talk’ once, and she’d rather not go relive it in any way shape or form. That was one of the few memories she’d been happy to let fade away into the mists of time. Besides, it had been so long since she’d actually done…anything regarding the whole talk she wasn’t sure how to talk about it. And while she could have used her copy of the Marauder’s Map to check, this way she knew that Hermione wouldn’t ask either.

_Three Weeks Later_

                Maria looked up from grading papers as Harry walked into her classroom. “Harry? What’s wrong?” Harry shrugged.

                “I got caught sneaking into Hogsmeade.” He said. “Well, officially I’m just suspected of sneaking into Hogsmeade, but Professor Lupin knows I did, and he’ll know if I try again. I didn’t feel like staying in the Gryffindor common room, and the Library’s occupied too, so I came here.”

                “Let me guess-you had the Marauder’s Map, and he took it.” Maria said, smiling as Harry’s eyes widened and he stared at her in shock.

                “…Yeah. How did you know?”

                “Who do you think had the map before Fred and George?” Maria asked, leaning back in her chair.  Harry just stared at her.

                “I figured it was whoever made the map.” He said finally.

                “Nah, that was years ago, when Professor Lupin was in school. He helped make the map in fact.”

                “Professor Lupin?” Harry exclaimed, shocked.

                “Yep, he’s Moony.” Maria told him, still smiling. “But, I figured out a few things that he and his friends never did, and neither did Fred and George. Specifically, I figured out how to trick the map.” It had, in fact, taken her fifty years to figure it out. There was a lot of very sophisticated magic in that map, considering it had been made by a bunch of fourteen year olds, but she’d done it. She needed to be able to move around the castle safely without anyone figuring out who she was. Maria reached into her desk and pulled out a pocket watch and waved her wand, first over it, then at Harry. “There you go.” She said after finishing the spell. “That watch now registers on the map as you. Just put it on your bed, make sure nobody’ll find it or move it, and you’ll be good.”

                “It’s that simple?” Harry asked, surprised. Maria shrugged.

                “It’s easier to do a spell once you’ve already done it a few times.” Plus, it was a much simpler version of her usual spell, as she normally included a spell that modified her name on the map to whatever her current alias was in addition to hiding her movements.

                “Thanks!” Harry said excitedly, taking the watch. He started to pocket it, then stopped, staring.

                “Is something wrong?” Maria asked, confused.

                “What happened to your hand?” Harry asked, pointing at the her right hand. More specifically, he was pointing at the mass of scar tissue on the back of her right hand.

                “I was a very stupid child.” Maria said with a shrug, glad she’d learned the simple glamour charm. “It took me two tries to figure out that water that had been in a pot on a stove was dangerous.”

                “And that one?” He asked, pointing at the large ring of scar tissue on her left arm. Maria sighed. She really had to start wearing long sleeves again.

                “Snake bite. Turns out that sometimes, doing research into Voldemort’s past leads you to some unsavory places.” Harry nodded and walked out of the room. Maria sighed, then stiffened as she realized that she still hadn’t turned off the mute on Dear’s console. She grabbed her stuff, checked the Marauder’s Map to make sure Lavender and Parvati weren’t nearby, then ran for the office. She opened the door to the Phone Booth, threw her stuff to the ground, and hit the mute button. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” She said in a panic. In the end, Dear was her only real friend in the world, and she wasn’t ready to lose her, especially not because of a temper tantrum she’d thrown.

                “…I forgive you, for now.” Dear said after a minute of silence.

                “Really?” Maria asked quietly, hugging the console.

                “Yeah. I mean, with our lifespan, what’s a month?” Dear said casually. “Though you might want to stop hugging my console before you accidentally press a button or something.”

                “Right.” Maria said, jumping back.

                “Look, I respect that you want to deal with things your own way, but you need to realize, I’ve been with you this whole time.” Dear started. Maria sighed and went over to her dresser and grabbed a hip flask, draining it. “I just don’t think it’s healthy for you to be alone for so long. I don’t count, I’m just a voice that, as the past month has shown, you can ignore and forget about.” Maria winced.

                “I’m sorry, I was just so mad, and then I was preoccupied with avoiding Lavender and Parvati, and…”

                “Coward.” Dear said with a laugh.

                “Shut up.” Maria muttered.

                “Still, this isn’t healthy.”

                “Look, once my job’s been completed, then I’ll find a girlfriend.” Maria growled

                “I’m not trying to upset you.” Dear said quickly. “But you’re the closest thing I have to family, and I don’t like seeing you unhappy.”

                “Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not ready to move on.” Maria said quietly, sitting down on the bed and summoning a bottle of firewhiskey and a glass.

                “I understand. She might not though.”

                “Well, it’s a good thing she’s dead then, isn’t it.” Maria snapped, tossing the glass to the side and taking a gulp straight from the bottle. Dear sighed and decided to let the subject drop. The anniversary was approaching, and Maria wouldn’t be in any state to communicate until after it was over.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Eight

                “Sirius Black, grab your coat!” Maria called, sticking her head out of Dear’s doors.

                “About damn time.” Sirius grumbled. “It only took you three months.”

                “Quit whining.” Maria said, rolling her eyes. “I told you we’d have to wait until Easter to do anything.”

                “I still don’t get why. It’s only an extra day, why couldn’t we just do this on a weekend?”

                “I told you, we need that extra day. If I leave the school, go straight to the Gaunt Shack, and bring back a Horcrux, then Dumbledore might get suspicious. By adding an extra day, I have a reasonable time frame with which to break the protections on the Ring.”

                “So, it’ll take you a whole day to break the protections?” Sirius asked as he threw on a cloak and climbed into the Phone Booth.

                “Of course not.” Maria snorted, shutting the doors. “Give me some credit. But if I didn’t know what was in the vault, why would I want to break them so badly? As a historian, I’m supposed to take a slow, methodical approach to this, since I’m supposed to not want to take the risk of damaging anything.”

                “How do you plan on killing it?” Sirius asked curiously. “I looked into the family library while you were off actually doing things and getting to have fun,” Maria rolled her eyes. “And it’s really hard to kill a Horcrux.” Maria pulled out a strange dagger from her robes. Strange, because instead of a metal blade attached to the hilt, it had a basilisk fang.

                “Basilisk poison.” Maria said, sheathing the dagger again. She’d made the dagger after sneaking into the Chamber and stealing a fang from the corpse of the basilisk. Fiendfyre was too risky and noticeable, and she didn’t have access to a Dementor that would follow her orders. She could have used the sword, but then she’d have to explain to Sirius where she’d gotten it. Well, she’d have to come up with a convincing lie at any rate. Easier for all involved to just bring a basilisk fang dagger. She’d magically aged it as well, so that when she told Dumbledore about the ring, she’d have a legitimate reason/excuse to have the dagger. Besides, when it came to the Ring, it was actually easier to use a dagger, since the Ring was so small, and the Stone was extremely difficult to damage and impossible to destroy. After years and years of trying to destroy the damn Stone, she’d grown a new appreciation for the sheer amount of strength Dumbledore had displayed just by cracking the Stone, especially considering the fact that he was dying at the time.

                “So, we’re going to break into Voldemort’s ancestral home, steal his stuff, and kill part of his soul?” Sirius asked, looking for clarification. Maria nodded, and he laughed.

                “What’s so funny?” She asked, confused.

                “I was just thinking of how awesome it would have been if you had gone to Hogwarts with James, Remus, and me.” Maria mulled that over. It’d be interesting to try things from that early, but she didn’t think that it’d work. There were just too many unknowns. Heck, she didn’t even know how many Horcruxes had been made at that point in time.

                “Yeah, that’d have been pretty fun.” She told him, pressing the last button. “Now, let’s go kill a ring.” Sirius raised an eyebrow as she let go of the bike handles and grabbed a large tin can.

                “What’s in there?” He asked. Maria grinned and pointed the can at Sirius’ face, then opened the can. Sirius jumped back in surprise as several spring ‘snakes’ jumped out of the can at him.

                “The enchantments on the Ring will go off if _something_ isn’t there, so I figured we’d replace the ring with the can, just in case Voldemort ever decides to come and check on his Horcrux.” She told him, waving her wand and gathering the ‘snakes’ back into the can. Sirius stared at her intently for another minute.

                “Are you sure we’re not related?” He asked finally. Maria shrugged.

                “I don’t think so, but with all the inbreeding, who knows anymore?” She admitted. For once, she was telling the complete truth. She’d never checked on her family tree past her grandparents, largely to avoid the potentially creepy revelations that could lead to. She’d rather just ignore the creepy possibilities that could be there and live in some degree of bliss.

                “Pity.” Sirius sighed. “It would have been nice to have a cool living relative.”

                “What about Andromeda?” Dear asked. Sirius frowned.

                “Well, she was a little stuffy, but from what I heard she married a Muggleborn, so at least she doesn’t have the Pureblood mania.” He said thoughtfully. “I guess I can go check on her after my name is cleared. And by the way, why’d you forget Bellatrix?” Maria blinked in surprise.

                “You consider Bellatrix to be a ‘cool relative’?” She asked.

                “No!” Sirius said, shuddering. “I meant, you burned off Narcissa and her idiot husband and son, and you burned off my parents, but you didn’t burn off Bellatrix.” Maria shrugged.

                “From what I understand, that tapestry is more or less the representation of your family tree. If you burn them off, then they’re actually being kicked out of the family. The way I see it, Bellatrix is locked up in Azkaban, without the knowledge of her being innocent or anything else to protect her. She’ll be lucky to last three more years. So, burning off Bellatrix didn’t seem important, and I was trying to alienate Kreacher as little as possible.”

                “And yet you burned off my parents.” Sirius pointed out. Maria shrugged.

                “I figured you’d find it cathartic.” She told him, opening the doors. “Now, let’s go kill a ring.”

                “Is that a snake’s skeleton?” Sirius asked curiously as Maria opened the door to the remnants of the Gaunt Shack.

                “Yep.” Maria said, not paying it any heed. To her, it was just another example of how jaded the years had made her, seeing as it no longer shocked, disgusted, or even surprised her. She waved her wand, and a light golden dust fell over the floor of the shack.

                “What’s that supposed to do?” Sirius asked, frowning.

                “Exactly what it’s supposed to do. Highlight any hidden trapdoors, show me if there’s any spells outside of the hole the Ring is in, and make the place look nicer.” Maria said happily. “Fortunately for us, Voldemort is convinced that nobody knows about his connection to the Gaunts, and that nobody would think to look in an old shack, so he only really puts traps on the hole itself, and they’re all fairly straightforward.” The main trap was the Ring itself, since most people would just put the ring on and wear it until they could destroy it. She stepped carefully into the shack, walking towards where she knew the trapdoor was, and carefully pulled it open. Maria pointed her wand down into the hole and cast a quick diagnostic spell, scanning it to see if there were any surprises. Fortunately there weren’t just the same stock of traps and a few alarm spells.

                “This is going to take a while.” She told Sirius, looking up from the hole. “Would you mind standing guard outside in case some Muggle comes along?” Sirius raised an eyebrow.

                “Why’d you bring me along if I wasn’t going to help you with the traps?” He asked, folding his arms.

                “Well, the trap where the fake Locket was would have required two people to finish, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry this time. Besides, I thought you wanted to get out of the house?” Maria said. “Plus, what’s the point in me doing all these clever things if there’s nobody there to stand around looking impressed?”

                “But I’ll be outside.” Sirius pointed out. Maria shrugged.

                “Yeah, but you’ll know I’m being clever, and that’s just as good. Now please leave. These traps are designed to not destroy the shack so that Voldemort can continue to use it, and I’d rather not try and bypass them with you standing there and putting yourself at risk.” Sirius nodded, though he still didn’t look happy about it. Maria cast muffliato, just in case the Ring decided to talk, and then set about disabling the traps, starting with the alarms. Fortunately, Voldemort hadn’t used anything she hadn’t seen literally hundreds of times before, so it was quick work. She then levitated the ring out of the hole and put it onto the floorboards, then pulled out the dagger. “Any last words?” She asked calmly.

                “Hello, oh great Robber of Life.” The Ring drawled lazily.

                “That’s a new one.” Maria said, equally calmly.

                “Not particularly. I believe even your home calls you Thief."

                “You can sense the remnants of your fellow Horcruxes from this far away?” Maria asked, raising an eyebrow. “That’s rather impressive. Tell me, why do you call me the Robber of Life?”

                “How many people have you killed over the years? How many people are dead now that would not be dead if you had not interfered?”

                “Far less than the number of people who are alive because I interfered.” Maria growled.

                “And yet, that too supports the name. After all, you steal just as many lives from Death as you do deliver.” The Ring said, still calm.

                “I know that. That’s one of the reasons Dear calls me Thief. Now tell me, why are you so calm? Most of your lot either beg for life or, in one case, tell me to get it over with.”

                “Why wouldn’t I be calm? I can sense your fear. It is so potent as to make any fear of death _I_ have seem minor. There is a reason there are no Rings in your ‘trophy room’.” Maria gave a mirthless laugh.

                “You poor fool, I’m not scared of _you_. There is something far more worrying than you in this shack. Pity Voldemort never bothered to do research into the Ring, he would have found something interesting imbedded in you.” Maria told him. “Now, shut up.” She stabbed down with the dagger, cutting off a portion of the golden band and relishing the screams, then gingerly picked up the ring, being careful not to activate the Stone.

                “You owe me ice cream.” Sirius announced once Maria exited the shack.

                “…Excuse me?” She asked, confused.

                “You owe me ice cream for making me stand out here and not letting me do anything.”

                “I thought the point of this was just letting you get out of the house?”

                “Taking me out of the house so I can stand outside a shack doesn’t count.” Sirius told her.

                “Fine.” Maria said with a sigh, walking inside and pocketing the ring. “I think I have some Butter Pecan in the kitchen.” Sirius made a face.

                “No thanks. Don’t you have any Strawberry?” Maria stiffened.

                “No. No Strawberry.” She said, her voice sounding tense. “I should have some Rocky Road or Mint Chocolate Chip.”

                “I’ll take the Rocky Road.” Sirius said, surprised by her extreme reaction to the request for Strawberry.

                “Alright, right this way.” Maria told him, snapping her fingers and making an orange door appear.

_Twenty-Four hours later_

                “Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.” Maria said with a smile, watching as the gargoyle moved to allow her access. She knocked on the door.

                “Come in.” Dumbledore said calmly. He looked up and smiled as Maria walked in and sat down in a chair across from him. “Good Evening Miss Evans. You told me that you found something that you wished to speak to me about?” Maria nodded.

                “Yes. You see, I’ve been doing research into Voldemort’s past, and I found something interesting. I managed to track his whereabouts, and this led me to his real name, Tom Marvolo Riddle.” Dumbledore’s eyes widened slightly, and he nodded, impressed. “From there, I was able to use the school records to find the orphanage he grew up in, where I discovered that he’d been named for his father, and that his middle name was from his grandfather. After another search, I tracked down the grave of Tom Riddle Senior. I then did yet another search in the area, where I discovered the home of his grandfather, and, presumably, his mother. It was an old, decrepit, abandoned shack.

                “I cast a charm I learned to reveal magical traps, just to make sure that none of the protections were still in place. When I did that, however, I noticed something rather odd. I discovered a trapdoor, which, being the curious sort, I opened. It took me several hours, but I disabled all the spells and traps underneath the trapdoor, but once I did, I found this.” She took the ring out of a pocket in her robes and placed it on the desk. Dumbledore stared at the ring, his eyes widening considerably. “When I levitated it out of the hole, it spoke to me. At first, it tried to get me to wear it, offering me power. I panicked slightly, and did what I always do when an obviously Dark artifact talks to me. I cast Incendio on it and tried to melt it. That, as you can see, didn’t work.”

                “So, what did you do?” Dumbledore asked curiously, picking up the ring and inspecting it. “I assume you did do something, seeing as it’s not talking.” Maria nodded.

                “It laughed at me, and told me that I was a fool to think that such a minor spell could ‘destroy the Horcrux of the Dark Lord’.” Dumbledore stopped looking at the ring and looked at her in open shock. “Well, research had told me a little about Horcruxes, though not much. I do know how to destroy one though, so I stabbed it with this.” She pulled out the dagger and placed it on the desk. “It’s made from a basilisk fang. I found it in an old ruin in Romania.” Dumbledore considered her.

                “That’s very quick thinking. May I ask why you carry such an item on your person?” Maria shrugged.

                “Sometimes my wand gets away from me. I keep the dagger in a sheath hidden in my robes so that I can always be sure to have something to defend myself with.”

                “A wise policy.” Dumbledore said, handing back the dagger. “Thank you for bringing my attention to this.” At that he waved the ring.  Maria smiled and stood up.

                “Of course Professor. I know when I’m in over my head.” She told him. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare the last of my lecture notes for my classes on Monday.” Dumbledore nodded absently, and she quickly left before he could ask her if she knew about the Deathly Hollows, letting out a sigh of relief once she turned the corner. The Resurrection Stone was now safely out of her reach, and the odds of her getting a hold of _this_ one again was extremely slim. 


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Nine

                Maria muttered under her breath and climbed out of bed, putting her contacts back in, then grabbed her hip flask and drained it. “Where are you going?” Dear asked as Maria laced up her boots.

                “The third floor.” Maria told her, putting on her robes and pocketing the wand.

                “Do I want to know why?”

                “Eh, maybe not.” Maria said with a shrug, walking out of the phone booth. Admittedly she wasn’t going to do anything bad, per se, but Dear would probably nag her about it when she got back if she told her. Better to leave Dear in the dark. She quickly checked the Marauder’s Map, making sure that her way was clear. Fortunately it was pretty late at night, and she couldn’t see anybody wandering about. Even Filch seemed to be asleep. The only thing to give her pause was that Dumbledore wasn’t in his office, but she shrugged it off. Considering what she’d given him yesterday, he was probably out doing research, maybe even looking for more Horcruxes. She briefly wondered if she should have told him that there was technically only one Horcrux left (Harry, since Nagini hadn’t become a Horcrux yet, then discarded the thought. She had no way of knowing that Harry was a Horcrux, or at least, not one she could tell Dumbledore that he’d believe. Better to just let him carry on. It would take him three more years to discover where the Locket was after all, so it wouldn’t be too bad. At the very least he’d learn more about Voldemort, which couldn’t be a bad thing.

                Satisfied, Maria slipped quietly out of her office and headed for the Grand Staircase. She caught herself glancing from side to side, and forced herself to relax. She was a teacher here at Hogwarts now, not a student or an intruder. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her wandering the castle at night, even if she couldn’t exactly give a good reason for why she was doing so. She put her hands in her pockets and entered the Grand Staircase, stepping onto one of the stairs just as it was about to float away. This immediately gave her another reason to be grateful that she had chosen to be a teacher this time around, as the stairs paused, then headed for the third floor corridor. The stairs were enchanted to take teachers where they needed to go, rather than the usual playing around they indulged in.

                A minute later, the stairs reached the third floor corridor, and Maria stepped off, palming her wand as she did so. She reached out and grabbed the door handle, nodding to herself as the door remained closed and firmly locked. That was a good sign. If the door was still locked, then the Mirror was still there, and this wasn’t a waste of time. Though once she thought about it, she realized she might not want to see it…She shook her head. She’d come this far. At the very least she’d go and see if it was still there. It was something she’d always wondered about, but had always slipped her mind, being otherwise occupied with more important things than idle curiosity. But she still had time before things would get going, so she figured now as good a time as any. Maria drew her wand, unlocked the doors, and stepped inside, then locked it behind her.

                She looked around, and tried to decide if she should be surprised that Fluffy wasn’t there anymore. She decided not to be. Without the Stone, there wasn’t anything that desperately needed to be protected down there. The Mirror was valuable, but there weren’t exactly many people trying to steal it. In fact, she had serious doubts that many people actually knew it even existed. So, it made sense to remove something as dangerous as Fluffy, especially once the giant dog was no longer necessary. Maria walked over to the trapdoor and pried it open, then cast Lumos. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Devil’s Snare was still there. If you were willing to go down into the trapdoor, then you were clearly not just a student that had wandered accidentally in here.

                Maria pointed her wand down into the hole and cast Incendio, burning away the vines. She knew that nobody was ever going to break into the…dungeon thing, so she didn’t feel too bad about incinerating one of the defenses. Besides, she never liked that particular type of plant, especially not after several bad experiences with the stuff when she was just starting out. Once she was sure that the plant was dead, and that she’d extinguished all the flames, she jumped down, landing in the hole. She looked around curiously, then continued on her way. Surprisingly, she could hear the beating of wings from the room up ahead, indicating that at least a majority of the keys were still flying. Considering that it had been three years, that was a rather impressive feat of magic. Maria walked into the room and looked around curiously at the flying keys, considering her options.

                She glanced to the side and noticed that there were three brooms still there. She considered grabbing one of them for a moment, then discounted it. They were, after all, _school_ brooms. It didn’t matter how good of a flier you were, at a certain point the brooms were just too crappy to be useful. She could stun the keys, but there was no guarantee that that would work. Since they were designed to protect the Mirror and the Stone within, it was likely that a simple stunning spell wouldn’t do anything. Likewise, Accio was unlikely to work. As she continued to mull over the possibilities, something occurred to her, and she resisted the urge to face-palm. She’d been able to bypass the spells placed on the potion in the locket’s cave, so it only stood to reason that she’d be able to do the same here.

                Nodding, Maria confidently walked through the room to the door and tapped the door handle with her wand, putting far more effort into the Alohomora spell than was usual, easily shattering the spell keeping the door shut, and walked inside. “That was rather anticlimactic.” Maria said to herself. It occurred to her that, when it came to things like these spells, which couldn’t adapt or strategize, she had a massive advantage now. She continued along the path, wondering how she could cheat to get past the chessboard. She didn’t want to destroy the chessmen, as they were a rather impressive bit of magic, especially if they still moved. She could apparate to the other side, but if Dumbledore had set up some way to record what was going on, a magical security camera of sorts, that would be difficult to explain. She could pass off opening the door as her knowing how to break curses, but ignoring the Hogwarts wards could not be explained. Theoretically, she could just play the game, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun. She was good at strategizing, but she had never liked chess, and it would take too long. She still needed to teach classes tomorrow after all. It occurred to her that she would have been better off if she had waited until Saturday or Friday, but it was too late now.

                Maria walked up to the chessboard, and realized she still didn’t know how she was going to cheat. She knew the chessmen wouldn’t let her just walk by, so that left that out. Then, something else occurred to her. Grinning, she pulled out her wand and waved it, silently casting Wingardium Leviosa on all of the chessmen and lifting them high into the air, too high for them to interfere, and she walked happily across the chessboard, continuing on to the next room. Surprisingly, the room was empty. Apparently they’d decided to remove the troll from the room and leave it empty. Shrugging, Maria moved on to the next room, where the potions were waiting. She considered the potions as the two rows of exotically colored flames burst into being, ‘blocking’ the path forward and backward. Smiling at how furious Snape would be if he knew how she was cheating, Maria walked forward and ran her wand along the ground just outside of the flames, extinguishing them. She then grabbed the two bottles of nettle wine and continued on to the last of the chambers, where the Mirror of Erised stood.

                She stood there for a moment, considering it while she stood too far away to see the reflection in it, and then opened a bottle of nettle wine and started drinking. She soon finished it and vanished the now empty bottle, then stayed in place, staring at the mirror. “I find it works better if you stand close enough to see your own reflection.” Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling. Maria shrugged.

                “I’ll admit, I came here less to see what it had in its surface, and more out of curiosity. I wondered whether you’d moved it or not.”

                “You do not wish to know what your heart’s desire is?” Dumbledore asked, raising an eyebrow.

                “I think I know what I’ll see and, quite frankly, I have enough self-loathing as it is. I like to think of myself as a fairly selfless person, willing to do whatever it takes to help other people, but I also think that, if I look in the Mirror, then I’ll end up seeing my family alive, and myself living a comfortable life, where I can live and work without worry, and therefore not in a position to be doing anything to help people. But right now, it’s just an abstract thought. If I look in the Mirror, then all I’ll receive is confirmation that, in the end, I am a very despicable person.”

                “It is not despicable to wish for a happy life.” Dumbledore said kindly. Maria gave him a sad smile.

                “It is in my case.” She said. “Out of curiosity, did you confirm whether or not the ring was a Horcrux?” Dumbledore nodded, noting the change of subject, but letting it go, for now at least.

                “I did. I must admit, I am curious as to why the ring would tell you that it was a Horcrux.” Maria shrugged.

                “Who can fathom the mind of Voldemort? Maybe it was just lonely and overconfident.” She said, turning around. “Excuse me Professor, but my curiosity has been satisfied, and I need to get _some_ sleep if I want to be able to teach classes tomorrow.” Dumbledore nodded and watched thoughtfully as she left, worried. He didn’t think she was a risk to herself or the students, but his own sense of duty would not let him alone unless he tried to do something to make her feel less hateful towards herself.

_Nine weeks later_

                “Hi Sirius!” Maria said brightly, walking out of the phone booth. Sirius glared at her from over his bowl of soup.

                “You realize it’s been nine weeks since you so much as talked to me, don’t you?” He growled. Maria nodded. “Please tell me you’ve tracked down another Horcrux.” Maria raised her eyebrow at him.

                “What? Last time I brought you to take care of a Horcrux, you just whined and made me give you ice cream.”

                “Because you didn’t let me do anything.” Sirius snapped.

                “No, I haven’t found another Horcrux. On the one hand, we’re down to one, not counting the one that’s him right now. On the other hand, I have no idea what it may be. I’ll have to do more research.”

                “Down to one? But I thought you said that he made seven. The one that’s him right now made it six, but still. Harry killed the diary, and you’ve killed the locket and the ring. That leaves three.” Maria shook her head.

                “You forget, I also killed Ravenclaw’s diadem and Hufflepuff’s cup.” She told him.

                “I didn’t forget, you never told me that!” Sirius said, upset.

                “I didn’t, did I?” Maria acknowledged, nodding. “Oh well, now you know. Shall we get going?”

                “Where are we going?” Sirius asked warily, finishing his soup. Maria grinned.

                “I figured that, with finals over, tomorrow would be as good a time as any to get Peter.” Sirius gave her a feral grin.

                “What’s the plan?” He asked, summoning his cloak.

                “Well, there a few things that need to happen. I overheard Harry and his friends planning to meet Hagrid tomorrow evening, so we need to wait until they try and return to the castle. At that point, Lupin should have noticed your presence on the Marauder’s Map, and he’ll go after you. Now, Ron has taken to carrying Peter around with him, as Hermione’s cat is suspicious of the rat. So, if you turn into a dog and grab Ron, you can take him to the Shrieking Shack. I’ll be watching from under my invisibility cloak, and I’ll hit the knot, allowing Harry and Hermione to pass. Now, I’ve planted seeds of doubt in Harry’s mind, so he won’t automatically think you’re evil, but he won’t necessarily trust you either. While you’re trying to explain things to the three of them, I’ll be standing guard to make sure Peter doesn’t escape, and Lupin will arrive, at which point you can explain everything to him, and the two of you can explain everything to the three of them.” Sirius gave her an admiring look.

                “You planned this out, didn’t you? Tell me, what do we do after we convince Harry and his friends of the truth?”

                “Well, we stun Peter so he can’t escape, then you, Harry, and I will cast our Patronuses, since the Dementors will probably have noticed you by that point. Lupin will have to stay behind, and I’ll carry around an extra flask of wolfsbane potion just in case. From there we’ll go to Dumbledore’s office, preferably with you in dog form until we’re safely inside his office. At that point, we’ll explain the situation to Dumbledore, he’ll summon Fudge, you’ll get pardoned, and then Peter will be dealt with.”

                “Sounds good.” Sirius said happily, following Maria into the phone booth.

                “Of course it’s good. I came up with it.” Maria said cheekily, closing the doors and then walking over to the console.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes
> 
> Yes, Maria’s reasons for not wanting to look in the Mirror were her real reasons, she wasn’t trying to manipulate Dumbledore.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Ten

                Maria suppressed a chuckle and pointed her wand at Snape’s back. Grinning maliciously, she stunned the Potions Master, then quickly cast another spell, one she simply referred to as the puppet spell. It worked in a similar manner to the Imperious Curse, but it could only really be used on an unconscious person, as it controlled the body, but not the mind. That allowed her to use it in good conscience, even if it did make things slightly inconvenient from time to time. In this case however, everything was fine. Nobody could see her, and while some of the wolfsbane potion had spilled, the majority was still in the cup. Not that it mattered anyway, seeing how she had a spare flask full of the stuff which she planned on giving Lupin, but at least she hadn’t made a mess. It was fairly late in the evening, so she was confident that nobody would notice that Snape was walking around with his eyes closed.

                Maria knew that Snape was a good man. Past experiences and Dear had hammered this into her multiple times. All the same, some petty part of her refused to let all of the past go. Maybe it was her mind’s way of reminding her of her origins, making it so she always had the urge to mess with Snape whenever she met him outside of combat. Considering some other aspects of her past, she figured it was better than some other impulses her brain could have given her. It was certainly better than what Dear would have given her. She carefully maneuvered the man into an out of the way classroom and propped him up against the desk. Glancing side to side to make sure nothing was amiss, she quickly wiped his memory of the last few seconds, then replaced it with an alternate memory. When he came to, he’d remember trying to deliver the potion to Lupin, but his ‘rightful’ concern about Sirius not having been found yet had caused him to go into the wrong classroom, and then he’d tripped on a desk leg and fallen over, at which point he’d managed to contact her and give her instructions before passing out. Nodding, she rolled him over, wincing as the potion spilled out over the ground, then shrugged and left, confident that she’d prevented that particular snag from the upcoming confrontation.

_At the same time_

                Sirius sighed heavily. On the one hand, things were going better than he’d ever imagined. Remus had immediately grasped the situation and hugged him like a brother. And while Harry, Ron, and Hermione were certainly surprised, the information Maria had given Harry, which Harry had relayed to his friends, had made it so that they weren’t horrified. At the very least, they were willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and not assume Sirius was evil and out to kill Harry. The problem, as it always was, was Peter. In this case, the particular problem was convincing the three students that ‘Scabbers’ was, in fact, Peter. He would have thought that the rat’s obvious panic, despite the fact that there wasn’t a cat or anything else that would frighten a normal rat, was evidence enough, but there you go. He briefly wondered how exactly the Weasley twins Maria had told him about had never noticed that the map was indicating that a wizard named Peter Pettigrew was sharing their little brother’s bed, then dismissed the thought. Peter had been there when the map was created, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that he’d discovered a way to subvert it that he’d forgotten to apply in his panic.

                “You’re mental!” Ron snapped, glaring at the two of adults in the shack.

                “You need new material Ron.” Remus said, sounding slightly amused, if tired. “That’s the third time you’ve said that.”

                “Well, it’s true!” Ron said defensively. At least the boy was holding tightly onto Peter’s tail, preventing the cowardly traitor from running away.

                “You still don’t believe us? Even after I explained the whole thing to you?” Remus asked, raising an eyebrow.

                “The only thing you told us was that you broke the law, but everybody at risk, betrayed Dumbledore’s trust, and almost killed Professor Snape.” Hermione pointed out. “And even if all that is true, we still don’t have any reason to believe you.”  Harry, for his part, remained silent, mulling everything over. Realizing his mistake, Sirius snapped his fingers.

                “Of course! How stupid of me.” He said. “Here, let me offer you proof.” He climbed off of the bed, closed his eyes, and turned into a dog and back again. “That proof enough?” He asked, smiling. Hermione paused, glancing at Ron, who looked shocked, and Harry, who looked convinced, and quickly rallied.

                “It proves that you’re an animagus, but it doesn’t mean that Peter is…was one too.” Sirius resisted the urge to groan, and opened his mouth to fire off a retort, but someone else beat him to it.

                “You know Hermione, there’s a point where logic stops being an asset and becomes a hindrance.” Maria said, amused, as she pulled the invisibility cloak off. Everyone, even Sirius who knew that Maria would try to make an ‘entrance’, jumped at her sudden and unexpected appearance. Maria grinned at the looks on their faces and tossed Harry the cloak. “You really need to stop leaving that thing lying around.” She told him with mock severity. “I mean, seriously. After the Norbert fiasco, you’d think you’d have learned your lesson.” She then turned to Hermione, taking advantage of everyone’s surprise. “I meant what I said Hermione. You’re overthinking this.”

                “Maria?” Remus asked, the first besides Sirius to regain his voice. “What are you doing here?” Maria shrugged, then pulled out a red hip flask, distinctly different from the one she kept her medicine in, and handed it over to her fellow professor.

                “Snape was too busy to bother delivering your potion, and he asked me to bring it to you. When I arrived at your office, I saw that you were gone, but the map on your desk told me everything I needed to know. I poured the potion into a hip flask and headed after you.”

                “Wait, you knew the whole time?” Harry demanded, staring at her. Maria sighed.

                “I _suspected_. I didn’t find out about everything for sure until Easter break or so.” She told him wearily. “Like I told you, there were several things that were…off about Sirius’ case, so, when I found him on one of my strolls around the grounds, I was more inclined to listen to him then turn him in. I hid him, fed him, and convinced him not to break into the castle to try and kill Peter. I’m still not sure how you were planning on doing that by the way.” She said, turning to look at Sirius. “Seriously, you’re a huge dog.” Sirius grinned.

                “Nobody questions a dog that looks like it know what it’s doing.” He said. Maria rolled her eyes and moved on.

                “So yeah, the way I see it, Scabbers is most likely Peter. Mind if we test?” She asked. Ron looked at her warily, though he seemed more willing now that he realized that two non Snape teachers were in on this.

                “What are you going to do?” He asked, looking first at Maria, then at Remus.

                “It’s a simple charm.” Remus assured him, taking back control of the situation. “If it works, it’ll force him back into his human form. If not, then it won’t hurt him in the slightest. The light it creates might disturb him, but that’s it.” Ron stared at the three adults, then at his two friends. Hermione shrugged helplessly, her natural trust of teachers combating her disdain for rule breakers. Harry, on the other hand, nodded. He trusted Maria and Remus completely, and he was willing to give Sirius the benefit of the doubt. The man certainly didn’t seem mad or violent. He’d been surprisingly nice about the whole thing when he wasn’t talking about Peter, even if he’d been a bit exasperated at times, and had seemed to be a genuinely good man. Ron nodded, and carefully handed Scabbers over to Remus, who cupped his hands, holding the rat firmly.

                “Care to do the honors?” He asked Sirius, curious as to where his old friend had gotten a wand. He pushed that thought aside as Sirius nodded, grinning ferally, and pressed his wand against the struggling rat’s head. A second later there was burst of blue light, and Remus quickly stepped back as a small man appeared on the ground of the shack.

                “S—Sirius… R—Remus…” Peter said slowly, his eyes darting around. “My friends…my old friends.” Sirius’ wand arm twitched, Remus stopped him, placing a hand on his arm. To Sirius’ surprise, Maria didn’t say anything. All her attention was focused on Pettigrew, but her face was blank, an emotionless mask that frankly disturbed him a little.

                “Satisfied?” Maria asked the three teens, all of whom nodded dumbly, speechless. “Good. Care to tell your ‘old friend’ how this is going to go Professor?” Remus stared at her, startled, then nodded.

                “Peter, please do not insult my intelligence by claiming to be innocent. No innocent man would spend twelve years as a rat, especially not when his only ‘enemy’ is safely in Azkaban and you have easy access to Dumbledore. Moreover, I consider Maria and Sirius to be two of the smartest people I know. If they are convinced of your guilt, then I have no doubt that you are, in fact, guilty. So, here is what’s about to happen. They’re going to take you back to the castle, and you will confess everything to Dumbledore. He will, undoubtedly, summon the Minister, and, after that, Sirius will be pardoned and you will go to Azkaban.” Maria snorted at that last part, but said nothing. Lupin gave her a weird look, but then focused back on Peter when the other man let out a small moan.

                “Az….Azkaban? But that means the Dem…Dementors.” Sirius nodded, the grin still on his face.

                “Indeed it does Peter. Indeed it does.” He said, gesturing with his wand. “Now, stand still and let me tie you up.” Peter backed away, and started to shrink.

                “No!” Maria spat, hitting him in the back with a stunner. Harry looked over at her, about to voice his thanks for her quick action, but stopped. For a split second her face had been twisted into a mask of pure hatred towards Peter. He’d never seen so much hatred on a person’s face, even Snape’s. “I don’t believe in second chances.” Maria said softly in response to Harry’s stare. She pulled out the Marauder’s Map and checked it, then gulped. “Professor, I’m afraid this is where we must part ways.” She said, nodding towards Remus, who nodded. “Sirius, do you think you can manage a Patronus?” She asked, casting a cheering charm on herself. Sirius looked over at Harry, then nodded. “Harry, same question.” Harry looked at his godfather, realized that he’d never have to go back to the Dursleys’ and nodded. “Alright, good. The Dementors have noticed Sirius’ presence, and they probably realize that you three aren’t technically supposed to be here. So, here’s the plan. I’ll go ahead, since my Patronus is the largest and can do the most. Harry, you’ll go after me. We’ll need our Patronuses to circle around us. Hermione and Ron, we’ll need you to carry Pettigrew so Sirius won’t be accused of modifying his memory. Sirius, I want your Patronus to focus on protecting the three…well, four, of you. Once we get to the school though, I’m going to need you to turn into a dog, just in case. Everybody got that?” They all nodded, and Maria smiled grimly, then turned around and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.” She said grimly.

                “Expecto Patronum!” Maria, Harry, and Sirius called out simultaneously. A second later, an elephant and a stag strode down the hallway out of the Shack, followed closely by Harry and Maria. Sirius’ wolf patronus began circling around the other four and they followed Harry and Maria out, Hermione and Ron holding Peter as they walked. As expected, the Dementors fell on them the minute they exited the shack, but the patronuses kept them at bay. 

                “You will leave.” Maria ordered, remaining surprisingly firm on her feet. “I am a teacher at this school, and the shack is the property of the school. No rule has been broken, and we will be missed.” The Dementor that seemed to be in the lead pointed at Sirius. “We are taking him to Professor Dumbledore now.” Maria growled. “You will not interfere.” The Dementor stayed very still, still pointing at Sirius. “You will have a meal soon enough, but not now. Or do you really wish to be on the receiving end of the wrath of Dumbledore again?” The Dementors stared at Maria in silence, then turned around as one and left.

                “Impressive.” Sirius said as they continued on their way.

                “Thank you.” Maria said, nodding in acknowledgement of the complement. The Dementors did not bother them again, and they were able to reach the front doors of Hogwarts relatively quickly. “Alright Sirius, we’re clear.” Maria said, checking the Marauder’s Map and dispelling her patronus. Sirius nodded, dispelled his own patronus (as did Harry) and turned into a dog. “Good. Now, let’s go.” Maria said after making sure that everything was good. As they made their way through the castle however, Maria came to a stop and turned around, looking sheepish. “Sorry you two, I’m an idiot.” She told Ron and Hermione, pulling out her wand and pointing it at Peter. The two teens let out a sigh of relief as the man was lifted into the air, out of their arms. “I’m sorry; I get a little scatterbrained sometimes.” Maria apologized again, and they resumed their journey. They soon reached Dumbledore’s office, but Maria just stood there, frowning and bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet.

                “You do know the password, don’t you?” Harry asked somewhat nervously after almost a full minute of this.

                “What? Oh yeah.” Maria assured him. “I’m just trying to figure out how to maneuver Peter through here.” She paused, and then shrugged. “Oh well, nothing for it. It’s not like he’ll be in any state to whine about a few bruises and lumps once this over. Jelly Babies.” The gargoyle jumped to the side, and they hurried up the stairs, Maria being somewhat careful with Peter. She wasn’t too concerned about hitting his head and bruising him, but she didn’t want to kill him either. Fortunately, no marks had appeared on her arms, so she figured she’d be okay.

                “Miss Evans?” Dumbledore asked, sounding surprised as the small group entered his office. He opened his mouth, probably to ask what the three students and a dog where doing with her, when he noticed Peter floating above Maria’s head like some sort of bizarre balloon. “Is that…Peter Pettigrew?” He asked, sounding even more surprised.

                “Indeed it is.” Maria said, smiling. “And he has quite the story to tell. Do you happen to have any Veritaserum, or do you think you can get the truth out of him without it?” Dumbledore considered her for a moment.

                “I believe that I can get the truth from Mr. Pettigrew, but perhaps you should get some when you return these students to the Gryffindor Common Room, just in case.” Maria nodded.

                “Come along Ron, Hermione.” She said, turning and walking for the door. The two she’d indicated followed her, while Harry stayed where he was.

                “You should go as well Harry.” Dumbledore prompted.

                “I’d like to stay Professor.” Harry said respectfully, glancing at Sirius, who was still in dog form.

                “It will be a long night.” Dumbledore said in way of warning.

                “I’m already awake Professor, and I’ve already finished all of my exams.” Harry said, his voice still respectful, but also determined.

                “…Very well.” Dumbledore said after a moment’s pause, conjuring up a large armchair, which Harry sunk into, nodding his thanks to Dumbledore as Sirius sat at his feet, his tail wagging. Maria smiled and left the office, Hermione and Ron close behind.

_Ten minutes later_

                Maria returned to Dumbledore’s office to find Harry and Sirius in the exact same position, Dumbledore standing in front of his desk, Peter crouching on the ground looking terrified, and a bewildered Fudge and two aurors standing off to the side, watching the whole thing. “Here you are Professor.” She said, handing the potion over to Dumbledore.

                “Thank you Miss Evans. If you would be so kind?” She nodded, and the together they forced the Veritaserum down Peter’s mouth. Once he was certain Peter had taken all the potion, Dumbledore began asking questions. “Are you really Peter Pettigrew?”

                “Yes.”

                “Who betrayed Lily and James Potter to Lord Voldemort?”

                “I did.”

                “And how did you accomplish such a feat?”

                “I was their Secret Keeper.”

                “Not Sirius Black?”

                “No.”

                “Why didn’t Lily and James inform anyone of the switch?”

                “It was felt that that would be the safest course of action, that nobody would suspect me of being the Secret Keeper.”

                “And how did you escape capture for so long?”

                “I turned into a rat and hid, becoming the pet of a wizarding family.”

                “Who killed those Muggles on the day you faked your death?”

                “I did.” Dumbledore nodded, and then turned to Fudge.

                “I believe that answers all your questions Cornelius, unless you can think of any more.” The Minister of Magic shook his head, rapidly twirling his bowler hat and looking very distressed.

                “No no, it’s quite alright. This is going to be a disaster though…once that Skeeter woman gets a hold of this…the Daily Prophet will have a field day.” He muttered, staring into space.

                “Actually sir, there are two things you can do that, if you do them immediately, will allow you to come out on top.” Maria said gently. Fudge turned to her. Normally he’d never take advice from someone so young, but he was desperate. Moreover, Dumbledore clearly trusted her, and trusting Dumbledore was deeply ingrained in his own psyche.

                “And what is that young lady? I assure you, any advice would be greatly appreciated.”

                “First off, apologize.” Maria told him. “Hold a press conference and personally release all the relevant information, and then acknowledge that the Ministry made a mistake. Emphasize that it was made while the war was on going, but don’t act as though you’re trying to make excuses. In addition, pardon Sirius Black of all charges and offer him reparations for time served unjustly. It should be equal or greater than the value of his bounty. Make it clear that you realize you made a serious error, and that you’re very contrite about the whole thing, as well as pointing out that you did indeed catch the true culprit. If you need a scapegoat, I’d recommend Barty Crouch. The press already distrusts him, and he really is the reason that Sirius didn’t receive a trial, so you’ll come off as a man telling the truth.” Fudge nodded eagerly. His politician’s brain had assessed the whole plan and found the whole thing very appealing.

                “And the second thing?” He asked. Maria glanced at Peter.

                “Now that you’ve found the true culprit, the press will be howling for blood. Moreover, Mr. Pettigrew has proven to be a serious escape risk. I think it’d be better for everyone concerned if he met the Dementors _tonight_.”

                “But…he hasn’t received a trial yet. Wouldn’t the press attack me for doing that?” Fudge asked, concerned. Maria shook her head.

                “He has already confessed his crimes in front of you, two aurors, and Professor Dumbledore. Should there be any doubt, you can easily assuage their fears by allowing them access to a pensieve and one of your memories. Besides, he lived as a rat for twelve years. Most people will see that as a big enough admission of guilt.” Fudge nodded.

                “Do…do you have any objections Albus?” He asked Dumbledore. The Headmaster frowned; staring intently at Maria, then shook his head slowly.

                “Just keep the Dementors out of the school Cornelius.” He said, sounding tired. Fudge nodded, and the two aurors grabbed Peter and dragged him out of the office. Dumbledore sighed and walked around the desk to his chair and sat down heavily.

                “I believe that, for the time being, we will have to call this a night. However, I would like to speak to all three of you tomorrow.” He said, looking at Harry, Sirius, and Maria, his eyes lingering on her.

                “Of course.” Maria said, nodding. “Come along Harry, Sirius.” Maria said, leading the other two out of the office.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Eleven

                “Good evening Professor.” Maria said, sitting down in front of Dumbledore.

                “Good evening Miss Evans.” Dumbledore said, staring at her intently. Maria gazed back at him, then decided to throw the man a bone.

                “Is something wrong Professor?” She asked tentatively.

                “You put me in a very difficult position last night.” The old Headmaster said. “I do not approve of the Ministry’s alliance with the Dementors, and I find the usage of the Dementor’s Kiss to be distasteful and reprehensible. And yet, you manipulated events so that I had no choice but to consent to allowing Peter Pettigrew be Kissed, or else be seen as aiding a known Death Eater and traitor.” Maria stared at him, stricken.

                “I’m sorry sir, it was not my intention to make you act against your principles.” She said. And she meant it, she genuinely hadn’t realized what she was forcing Dumbledore to do, though she had wondered why he’d gone along with everything so readily. That, she supposed, was the main problem when it came to trying something new after spending so much time doing the same thing over and over again. She’d lost her ability to accurately predict what people would do in new situations.

                “I did not think it was.” Dumbledore said reassuringly. “However, this does lead me into my second question. When I asked Harry about the previous night’s events, he told me that you’d said something that worried him.” Maria stiffened, forcing down any sense of worry. Dumbledore would tell her what she’d said, and she’d fix it so that there wouldn’t be an issue again. “He said that you said you don’t believe in second chances. May I ask what you meant by that?” Maria repressed a sigh of relief. That would not help her convince Dumbledore that she wasn’t a psychopath.

                “I don’t believe in giving people chances they don’t deserve.” Maria said simply.

                “Surely Peter deserved a chance.” Dumbledore said reproachfully.

                “He had his chance. He was Percy Weasley’s rat for four years, and Ron Weasley’s for three more years. That’s seven years in which he was here in Hogwarts. I consider Professor Snape to have atoned for his crimes as a Death Eater because he came to you, and he tried to make amends. I can tell that he truly regrets what he did. Peter , on the other hand, did not. He had seven years where he could have gone to you, explained what he did, and tried to make amends. Instead he hid, and let an innocent man rot in Azkaban. Letting him live, especially considering his talent for escaping, would have been foolish and irresponsible.”  Maria told him, forcing down the small amount of irritation she was feeling. Dumbledore had his own set of beliefs, and he was entitled to them, just as she was entitled to hers.

                “So you condemned a man to a fate worse than death because he was afraid to come forward and talk?”

                “I condemned a man to a fate worse than death because he betrayed his two best friends when they only treated him with kindness, and the only thing he regretted was being caught.” Maria growled. “I don’t have a drop of human kindness for Peter Pettigrew.” Dumbledore frowned at her, but it was an extremely disconcerting frown. It was fatherly, concerned, something Maria had seen in…she had no idea how long it had been.

                “May I ask what happened in your life that gave you such extreme views?” Maria shrugged.

                “I’ve studied history. Far too many problems have been caused because the good guys gave their enemies too many chances. Let’s admit it, Voldemort is coming back. You know it, and I know it. If I have the chance to keep even one servant from him, I’ll do it.” Dumbledore considered her for a minute.

                “While I cannot fault your intentions, I must warn you not to go too far. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as demonstrated by Bartemius Crouch.” Maria nodded. “Good. Now, I have one more question, this time on the topic of Sirius Black.” Maria nodded again. “He told me that you’ve been helping him since late last September. Is that correct?”

                “Yes sir, it is.” Maria confirmed, wondering where this was going.

                “May I ask why you didn’t inform me that you were hiding a man being hunted by the Ministry in the school?”

                “Two reasons really.” Maria told him. “First off, I technically didn’t have any proof. I just had his word and my observations as a historian. I wasn’t going to get you involved in this mess if I didn’t have any proof to justify the risk to you. This school needs you far more than it needs me. The second reason is that I actually removed him from the school over Christmas.”

                “You did?” Dumbledore asked, surprised. He hadn’t remembered her leaving the castle with a dog when she went to Hogsmeade to apparate to her home.

                “I did.” Maria said, nodding. “He has spent the last few months since the Christmas break in his home in London.”

                “Which leads us to the next problem.” Dumbledore said, sighing heavily. “Both Harry and Sirius are operating under the impression that Harry will be leaving the Dursley’s permanently to live with Sirius.”

                “Which he will.” Maria said, shrugging as if she didn’t know what Dumbledore’s problem with that idea was.

                “I’m afraid he won’t.” Dumbledore said gravely. “Harry doesn’t seem to understand the power of the wards around the Dursley home, or how essential they are. I was hoping that you could help me explain this to them, they both seem to trust you completely.” Maria shook her head.

                “Professor, I’m afraid it’s no longer that simple, nor is it up to us anymore.” She told him. “I know for a fact that one of the reparations Sirius’ll ask for is custody of Harry, and there’s absolutely no chance the Ministry won’t give it to him. Not only are they going to be bending backwards to make Sirius happy, but with the way the Ministry works, they’d much rather have the Boy Who Lived in the custody of a rich pureblood wizard than a family of Muggles, especially since Harry doesn’t seem to like them very much.” Dumbledore let out another heavy sigh.

                “I’m afraid that I’m going to have to disappoint them. Between the two of us. I’m sure we can convince them…”

                “That’s not going to happen sir.” Maria said, cutting him off. Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

                “No?” Maria shook her head.

                “No sir. Sirius and I inspected the protections around his home, and I compared them to the protections around the Dursley’s. Sirius’ home is unplottable, can’t be seen by Muggles, has wards to shield from spells, apparition, and portkeys, and another set of protections that mean that people can’t enter by way of the Floo without express permission from the owner of the house, in this case Sirius. In addition, we placed the Fidelius Charm on the house, with me as the Secret Keeper. The Dursley’s, on the other have what amounts to a very big wall.”

                “An impenetrable wall.” Dumbledore corrected.

                “No sir.” Maria said, shaking her head again. “One could load a car up with Muggle explosives and drive it right into the house, and the wards wouldn’t do a thing. Sirius’ house, on the other hand, is protected against that. Moreover, any Death Eater with an ounce of sense and some information gathering skills could discover where the Dursleys live. Once again, that is not the case with Sirius’ home. And the final nail in the coffin for your plan of having Harry return to the Dursley’s is that he hates it there. The wards only work so long as he can call that place home. Now that he knows that Sirius is a good man and that he can live with him instead of the people who treated him like garbage all his life…? Well, I think it’s safe to say that he no longer calls that place home anymore.” Dumbledore looked down, looking old.

                “You are most likely correct.” He admitted, sounding defeated. He looked back at her. “Would you tell me where Sirius’ home is? I wish to visit over the summer and add what protections I can.” Maria nodded.

                “Of course Professor. It was never my intention to cut you off from Harry, nor was it Sirius’. We know you have his best interest in mind. Sirius’ home is Number 12 Grimmauld Place, in London.” Dumbledore inclined his head.

                “Thank you. I believe that that’s everything I can think of.” Maria nodded.

                “Very good sir. And I’d just like to apologize once again. I did not mean to put you in such a difficult position.”

                “It’s quite alright.” Dumbledore said, his eyes regaining their twinkle. “I understand.” Maria nodded again and left the office, not sure whether or not that could be considered a victory on her part.

_Ten minutes later_

                “I’ll be sorry to see you go.” Maria said, shaking Remus’ hand. She, Sirius, and Harry had all gathered in Remus’ office to help him pack and see him off. Remus shrugged.

                “My contract was only for a year anyway. Frankly, I’m impressed I made it through the whole year. And it's not too bad. I already have a new job lined up.” Maria raised an eyebrow as Sirius grinned at this.

                “What did you do Sirius?”

                “I made him my regent.” Sirius informed her. “Now that my name’s been cleared, I’m Lord Black. I needed somebody else to handle all the boring stuff that comes with the title, like finances, paperwork, and going to snooty pureblood parties. Of course,” He continued, clapping his hand on Harry’s back. “The law says that it can only be on a regent level, so you’re going to be Lord Black once the two of us kick the bucket.” Harry looked up at him in surprise.

                “But I’m not a Black.” He protested.

                “No, but you’re my godson, and that’s close enough for the law. Besides, I already willed all my assets to you, so you’re going to get everything the regular Lord Black would get anyway.” Remus raised an eyebrow at this.

                “You’re not planning on having children?” Sirius shook his head emphatically.

                “No. I’d make a horrible father. I rather enjoyed the bachelor life before I got locked up, I plan on living out the rest of my days as one.” Remus looked rather confused.

                “So, you and Maria aren’t…” Maria’s eyes widened in surprise, and Sirius burst out laughing.

                “No, no.” Sirius assured him. “I’d have to do something drastic to get her to date me, and I’d rather not do such a thing. Besides, I’m too old for her.” Maria decided not to comment on the last part, figuring it’d raise more questions than she needed.

                “And what drastic thing would you need to do?” Remus asked, rolling his eyes.

                “Get a sex change.” Sirius said matter of factly. Remus blinked, looking from Sirius to Maria, both of whom were smirking.

                “Sirius, not in front of Harry!” He protested. Harry looked at him, looking deeply confused by the whole thing.

                “He’ll need to find out some time.” Sirius said, shrugging.

                “Not at thirteen!”

                “What are you talking about?” Harry demanded, sounding irritated at being talked about as if he weren’t there, as well as being left out of the loop.

                “Remus doesn’t think you’re old enough to know that I’m gay.” Maria told him frankly.

                “Oh.” Harry said. “Why?” Maria shrugged.

                “No idea. Maybe he thinks you’ll be emotionally scarred for life.”

                “Well Harry? Are you scarred for life?” Sirius asked, grinning.

                “Not really.” Harry admitted. “Sorry.”

                “Excuse me for being old.” Remus said, rolling his eyes.

                “I’m sure Harry’ll be willing to forgive his Grandpa Lupin.” Sirius said, still smirking.

                “I forgive you Grandpa.” Harry assured Remus, grinning.

                “How did you corrupt him already?” Remus demanded, glaring at Sirius.

                “It’s genetic.” Sirius told him. “Potter men are designed to be snarky when in the presence of a Black.”

                “That’s an oddly specific gene.” Maria said, grinning.

                “It’s a magic gene.” Sirius said, shrugging. Remus sighed, then gave a small smile.

                “It looks like the Marauders have been reborn.” He said. “God help the world.” Sirius’ face lit up.

                “That’s right! We’ve got two of the originals, and two new ones! Prongs the Second and…” He looked at Maria. “Are you an animagus?”

                “Yep.” Maria said, nodding.

                “What do you turn into?”

                “A giant mongoose that can shoot lasers out of my eyes and breathe fire.”

                “I seriously doubt that.” Sirius said, raising an eyebrow.

                “Yeah, but wouldn’t it be awesome if I could do that?” Maria said, grinning.

                “Just answer the question.” Remus said, rolling his eyes.

                “It’s a secret.” Maria told them, shrugging. “I made a promise not to tell.” Sirius sighed.

                “Fine. Padfoot, Moony, Prongs the Second, and Annoyingy.”

                “Annoyingy? Is that any way to talk to the person who made it so you didn’t spend the whole year sleeping in the forest, who made sure the Dementors didn’t find you, who helped catch Peter, and who helped you reconnect with Harry?” Sirius grimaced.

                “Are you really going to hold that over me?”

                “For the rest of your life.” Maria confirmed, smirking. Sirius sighed.

                “Fine. Padfoot, Moony, Prongs the Second, and…Thorn.” He said after a moment’s thought. Maria raised an eyebrow.

                “Thorn?”

                “Sure. You’ve proven that you’ll be a big thorn in Voldemort’s side, and you’re already proving to be a thorn in mine.” Maria shrugged.

                “Fair enough. It’s not too bad.” She decided. She certainly liked it better than any of the nicknames the Horcruxes had come up with for her.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Twelve

                Maria picked up the newspaper and smiled. Peter Pettigrew’s Kissing had made the front page, as had Sirius’ pardon. That was good, very good. Everything was going the way she’d hoped. If she was lucky, she’d be done by the summer after the Triwizard Tournament. She liked this plan; it had been a good one. She’d been able to work directly with the people she was helping, and yet she had never come in contact with _her_ , which was always a good thing. The whistle of the Hogwarts Express interrupted her thoughts, and Maria looked up. She folded up the paper and tossed it in the trash, then made her way to where the parents of the students were waiting. Sirius was busy making last minute preparations at Grimmauld Place, making sure that everything was clean, as well as helping Dumbledore improve the wards. So, she’d volunteered to pick Harry up and help him get all of his stuff from the Dursleys.

                “Professor Evans?” Hermione said in surprise as Maria waved her, Ron, and Harry over.

                “Just Maria now.” Maria told her. “It’s summer, I’m off duty. You call me Professor the whole summer, I’ll start feeling old.”

                “Alright, but what are you doing here?” Hermione asked, frowning.

                “I’m here to help Harry get his stuff from the Dursleys.” Maria told them. “Sirius sends his apologies,” She continued, looking directly at Harry. “But the Ministry hasn’t come up with an appropriate lie to tell the Muggles yet, so he’s still wanted by the Muggle government, and he didn’t think that his coming would be the best idea.”

                “So, can we go now?” He asked, eager to put the Dursley’s behind him.

                “Unfortunately no.” Maria told him. “We have to get them to sign over custody of you, and Sirius ‘forgot’ to send them a letter telling them not to come, so we’re going to have to talk to them.” Maria told him, pulling out her hip flask and draining it.

                “Ron!” Mrs. Weasley called out, walking up with the rest of her family behind her. “What are you doing, we’ve been looking for you and…Oh. Hello.” She said, noticing Maria. Maria winced, realizing that, all things considered, she probably hadn’t made the best impression just now. Not only was her flask still in her mouth, but her Muggle clothes consisted of a Dragon-skin coat, jeans, and a Guns ‘N’ Roses t-shirt. Admittedly, Mrs. Weasley probably had no idea who Guns ‘N’ Roses were, but considering her husband, she probably knew what guns were.

                “Hello.” Maria said, pulling the flask away. “I am Professor Maria Evans. I teach History of Magic at Hogwarts.”

                “Oh. A Professor.” Mrs. Weasley said, still looking uncertain.

                “Don’t worry Mom, that’s not alcohol.” Ron said, stepping in.

                “Unfortunately, little Ronnie is telling the truth.” Fred said with a sigh.

                “As fun as it would be for History of Magic to be taught by a drunk teacher…” George continued.

                “It is in fact medicine.” Fred finished. Maria looked at the twins suspiciously as she screwed the lid back onto her flask.

                “May I ask how you know what’s in my hip flask?” She asked. The twins shrugged.

                “We’ve been to Hogsmeade enough…”

                “To know what alcohol smells like.”

                “And if it really were alcohol…”

                “Your classroom would smell very different.”

                “They’re right Mother.” Percy said stiffly.

                “I see.” Mrs. Weasley said, brightening up considerably. “So, Professor Evans, what are you doing here?”

                “I’m picking up Harry for his godfather.” Maria said happily. “The Ministry still hasn’t told the Muggles that Sirius was innocent, so it was decided that sending him to King’s Cross Station might not be the best of plans.” Mrs. Weasley nodded. She’d been skeptical when the Ministry of Magic had announced that Sirius Black was innocent, and downright horrified when she’d discovered that Ron had been involved in clearing the man. But Dumbledore had personally visited her using the Floo Network, and that had reassured her.

                “Well, we need to be going.” Mrs. Weasley said, glancing around to make sure all of her children had stayed nearby.

                “I should be going too.” Hermione said. “My parents are here.” Maria stood back as Harry, Ron, and Hermione said their goodbyes and the Weasleys and Grangers left.

                “Got all of your stuff?” She asked Harry once they were more or less alone.

                “Yeah.” Harry said, glancing to make sure everything was still there and that the Twins hadn’t tried to pull any last minute pranks upon seeing Harry with a teacher.

                “Alright then, ready to go see the Dursleys one last time?”

                “Do I have to?” Harry asked. “I took everything I cared about with me to Hogwarts.”

                “Unfortunately yes.” Maria told him. “You see, there’s one more thing we have to do, besides get your stuff.”

                “What’s that?” Harry asked as they set off for the portal to Kings Cross Station.

                “Well, you see, in the eyes of the Ministry, the Dursleys are your legal guardians still. So, while we’re at their house, I’ve got to get them to sign over custody of you to Sirius.”

                “Couldn’t Sirius do that?” Harry asked. Maria looked down at him and raised an eyebrow, but Harry hurried on. “I know that can’t come _here_ , but couldn’t he just Floo into their house?” Maria smirked.

                “As much as I too would like to see their reactions to learning who your godfather is, it’s best to er on the side of caution. After all, they might decide to try and call the police, and Sirius and I might not be fast enough to stop them, or they might distract us before calling. In the end, it’s just in everybody’s best interests to make you wait a few hours before you can meet Sirius again.” Harry looked up at her sharply, then rolled his eyes when he saw the grin on her face.

                “Oi! Get over here boy!” Vernon Dursley called. Harry sighed and went over to where his uncle was waiting, followed closely by Maria. “Who are you?” He growled upon seeing her.

                “Professor Maria Olivia Evans.” Maria said cheerfully. “I teach history at Harry’s school.” Vernon paled considerably.

                “What do you want?” He growled.

                “I’m just here to tell you that, after today, you’ll never have to see Harry again.”

                “Why is that?” Vernon demanded suspiciously. While he would love to find that he never had to  see Harry again, he was naturally suspicious of anything a wizard or witch told him.

                “Well, through a complicated series of events that we both know you don’t care about, Harry’s godfather has returned and would be delighted to take custody of Harry from you.”

                “Well then, why are you here for? Don’t tell me you thought he’d want to say goodbye.”  Vernon growled, snorting.

                “Not at all. He hates you lot, and rightly so. No, the reason we’re here is that you are currently Harry’s _legal_ guardians, and, as such, there are _legal_ documents you have to sign before he can escape you.” Vernon gritted his teeth, but his desire to be rid of Harry overrode his indignation.

                “Fine. Give me the papers.” Maria shook her head.

                “No sir, it doesn’t work like that. You and your wife are both Harry’s guardians, so both of you have to sign the papers. I’ll just put Harry’s stuff in my car and we’ll follow you home, then you two can sign the papers while Harry removes all of his stuff from your house.”

                “No, you’ll not be entering my house.” Vernon said vehemently, shaking his head. Maria raised an eyebrow.

                “Well, we can’t do this without both you and your wife. If we can’t come to your home, then the only other option is for you to drive to your house, get your wife and all of Harry’s things, drive back here, have her sign the papers, and then drive back home, wasting a lot of time and money.” Once again, to major facets of Vernon’s personality, his frugality and his hatred of magic, were thrown into conflict. Finally though, his frugality won out. He could handle a few minutes more of having one of the magical freaks in his home if it meant never having to meet one again.

                “Fine. But _he’s_ not getting in my car.” He spat, turning around and walking away. Maria looked down at Harry, raising an eyebrow.

                “I thought I just said you’d be in my car.” She remarked.

                “I thought so too.” Harry said, smirking. Maria chuckled and picked up Hedwig’s cage.

                “Let’s go.” She said, heading for the exit. Harry followed, pulling along his trunk behind them. When they reached Maria’s car though, he paused.

                “What kind of car is that?” He asked, frowning in confusion.

                “It’s a 1970 Dodge Charger RT.” Maria said, opening the grey car’s trunk and putting Harry’s trunk in it.

                “It looks…boxy.” Harry commented as he climbed into the car.

                “It’s a muscle car.” Maria said as she buckled her seat belt. “Best cars in existence.”

_One hour later_

                “Alright Harry, try not to blow anyone up this time.” Maria said with a grin as they climbed out of the car. Harry rolled his eyes as she let him go ahead and opened the door. He headed up the stairs, while Maria went for the kitchen.

                “Bloody hell woman, don’t you have any manners?” Vernon demanded when Maria walked into the kitchen where he and Petunia were standing.

                “Not for you.” Maria said, smiling, as she pulled the papers out of her jacket and set them down on the counter. “Now, if you’d be so kind.” Vernon scowled, but pulled out a pen, only for Petunia to stop him.

                “This is a legal document.” She hissed. “How do we know this won’t end up in a normal court?”

                “You’re right!” Vernon said, turning and glaring at Maria as if she’d just tried to trick him into committing a terrible crime. “How do we know this won’t end up getting shown to normal people?”

                “You don’t. Because it will.” Maria said coolly. Petunia looked horrified, and Vernon opened his mouth to yell at her, but she cut him off. “With all due respect Mr. Dursley, everyone on this street, and indeed in this neighborhood, knows that Harry lives with you, and that he should be returning right about now. Don’t you think they’ll ask questions when he doesn’t? This way, you have proof that you didn’t do anything illegal to him.” Vernon glared suspiciously at her, then grumbled a bit and signed the papers. Petunia looked incredibly reluctant, but she signed as well. “Thank you. We will now be on our way and out of your hair.” Maria said, taking the papers away as Harry poked his head in, wondering why this was taking more than two seconds. “Come along Harry.” Maria said happily, walking past him.

                “Did they sign?” Harry asked.

                “Of course.” Maria said smugly, folding up the papers and putting them back in the pocket in her jacket.

                “It took longer than I thought it would.” Harry said, surprised. “Did they have trouble finding a pen or something?” Maria rolled her eyes.

                “No, it just occurred to your aunt that legal documents might end up in the archives of a Muggle court, which it will, so I had to point out why it was advantageous for them to have those papers in a court.”

                “Why would it be good for them?” Harry asked, confused.

                “Because then they can prove that you are living with your godfather, not buried in the backyard.”

                “I think most people would just assume that I’m staying at my boarding school over the summer.” Harry pointed out.

                “Don’t be ridiculous. A teenager choosing to stay at their school? Ha. Murder is the far more likely option.” Harry rolled his eyes.

                “Lupin is right, you have a weird view of the world.” He told her.

                “Hey, I’ve worked hard to get that world view.” Maria told him in mock indignation. “It took me a long time to get this cynical.”

                “So does that mean I can start calling you Grandma Evans?”  Maria stared at him.

                “Remus is right. Sirius has corrupted you.” Harry just smirked at her.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Thirteen

                “You’re holding a party?” Maria asked, looking around the dining room of Sirius’ house in bemusement as Sirius ‘supervised’ Kreacher, who was setting up decorations for the party.

                “Of course! Why wouldn’t I celebrate being released from Azkaban and being able to live with my godson?”

                “No, no, that part’s normal. I’m just confused by the fact that it’s been two weeks since summer break started, and you’re just now throwing a party.”

                “Well, I had to wait, didn’t I? I had to reconnect with Andromeda and convince her that I’m not evil, and I had to convince Molly and Arthur of the same thing. It takes a while to convince people that you’re not evil after they’ve spent the last twelve years convinced you were.” Maria raised an eyebrow.

                “Didn’t Dumbledore personally say that he believed you were innocent and deeply regretted the whole twelve years in Azkaban thing?” Sirius shrugged.

                “Yeah, well, it’s one thing to hear someone say something and have you believe it, it’s quite another to prove that that trust isn’t misplaced, especially to a parent.” He pointed out.

                “True. So, who’s coming to this party?”

                “The Weasleys, Hermione, maybe her parents, Remus, you, and Andromeda and her family.” Maria tensed.

                “Yeah, I think I’m going to be busy tonight.” She told him.

                “Nope, I already asked Dear, and she said your schedule was clear.” Sirius said. “And why wouldn’t you want to come? It’s not like you have to pay for the food or anything.” Maria sighed.

                “Fine. But I reserve the right to leave at any point.” Sirius gave her a strange look, but shrugged.

                “Well, yeah, I’m not going to be tying up my party guests.”

                “I wouldn’t put it past you to tie us all up as a prank.” Maria told him.

                “I suppose I could, but what would be the point? I’d have to untie you at some point, and I’d be the only one laughing. Besides, Andromeda would kill me if I did that.” He paused and frowned. He thought he’d seen Maria twitch nervously at the mention of his cousin. “Andromeda.” Maria looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

                “What about her?” She asked, folding her arms.

                “Nothing, nothing.” Sirius said quickly. “Just be here at 7 o’clock tonight, okay?”

                “Okay, okay.” Maria said, walking out of the dining room. She walked upstairs to one of the spare rooms, opened the door, and glared at Dear for a moment, then opened the phone booth up and stepped inside, shutting the doors behind her. “Really Dear? Really?”

                “What do you think I did this time?” Dear asked, sighing.

                “You told Sirius I wasn’t doing anything today!”

                “Well, you’re not.” Dear said calmly. “Of the two Horcruxes that you haven’t destroyed yet, _you_ can’t kill one of them, and the other isn’t a Horcrux yet.”

                “He’s inviting Andromeda! And her family!” Maria said, sounding slightly panicked. “I’ve spent the last…I don’t even know how long avoiding her.”

                “Well maybe it’s time to act your age.” Dear said, sounding exasperated.

                “You’re right.” Maria said sarcastically, jumping into bed and lying perfectly still. Dear waited, but Maria stayed perfectly still and silent.

                “What are you doing?” She asked finally.

                “I’m over two hundred years old, which means that, if I were to act my age, all I could do is lie on my bed. And that’s if I’m really lucky. If I’m not, then that means to act my age I’d have to get in a coffin and bury myself alive.” Dear sighed,

                “Fine, just act mature then.”

                “You don’t get much more mature than two hundred years old. Admittedly, I’m way older than that, but at my current age, I’m pretty sure my corpse would have dissolved and rotted away to nothing unless you mummified me, so I can’t act my real age.”

                “Act your physical age then.” Dear told her, exasperated.

                “Twenty-two year olds are not known for their maturity.” Maria pointed out, grabbing her hip flask and drinking from it.

                “They’re more mature then you are right now.” Dear pointed out. Maria screwed the lid back onto the flask and sighed.

                “Fine, I’ll go to the party. Just don’t expect me to stay very long.” She said, getting up to go make more ‘medicine’.

_Six hours later_

                Maria sniffed the punch in her cup, suspicious. Between Sirius and the Twins, she wasn’t sure she wanted to trust any food or drink that was offered. “It’s safe.” Remus said, walking up and getting his own cup.

                “You sure?” Maria asked, wary. She really didn’t want to take any risks.

                “I’m sure.” Remus said with a small smile. “James and Sirius liked to test their new ideas on me, since they knew I wouldn’t hate them for it. I quickly learned how to test for prank substances.” Maria nodded and took a sip, then frowned.

                “Did Sirius spike the punch?” She demanded.

                “In a way.” Remus admitted. “There are spells on it so it won’t have any alcohol if you’re underage, but for the adults, yes, there is some alcohol in it.” Maria sighed.

                “Why would you do that? Punch is good on its own.” She asked. Her main problem wasn’t that it was spiked, or that it tasted bad, but that it meant that she had to limit how much she drank, since she couldn’t afford to get drunk. The annoying truth was that she was a rather talkative drunk, and there were things she couldn’t afford to let slip.

                “Here.” Remus said, sticking his wand out and tapping her glass. “There, now the punch bowl thinks you’re sixteen, at least for as long as you have that particular cup.”

                “Thanks.” Maria said. Remus nodded and walked away to talk to Mr. Weasley. Maria took a sip from her cup, then frowned as she noticed Fred walk over to the table of food, take a cream puff, and casually walk away. She did a quick count, and realized that there was the same number of cream puffs as there had been a minute ago. She sighed, rolling her eyes, and cast a quick spell on the tray. Surprisingly, there were ten Canary Creams on the tray. They must have done this a few times without her noticing. She walked over and picked out the ten, then placed it on a plate and walked over to the Twins. “You know, playing pranks like this at a party that your mother is attending might not be the best of plans.” Maria said dryly, handing George the plate.

                “Eh, everyone’ll just assume that Sirius was behind it.” George said, placing the creams in a bag nonetheless.

                “Sirius pranking people at a party designed in part to show your parents that he’s an adult capable of taking care of Harry?” Maria asked.

                “She’s got a point there.” Fred acknowledged.

                “Indeed she does. Very well, we shall wait until the next time Sirius throws a party.” George said, pocketing the bag of creams.

                “Fair enough. Just tell me what you’re pranking beforehand or I’ll give you both T’s on your next three exams.” Maria told the twins.

                “That’s not a very good threat Professor.” Fred pointed out.      

                “Yeah, since when have we ever cared about our grades, especially in History of Magic?” George asked.

                “True. But I will then proceed to send your mom those tests and ask that she provide you with the ‘proper motivation’.” The Twins stared at her in horror.

                “Understood.” They said in unison, running away. Maria smirked and took a sip, turning around to go talk to Harry and Ron, when suddenly she heard a familiar voice.

                “I must admit Sirius, I’m impressed.” Andromeda said as she entered the dining room. “I didn’t think you’d have been able to make the whole house fit for human dwelling so quickly, especially considering how long it’s been empty. You even managed to get rid of those awful portraits.”

                “Well, I had help.” Sirius admitted, hugging his cousin. Maria froze, waiting, then relaxed when she didn’t hear a third voice. Then, there was a loud crash, followed by the exasperated yet affectionate sighs of two parents who have grown used to a clumsy child. Years of fighting had hardwired the urge to turn in the direction of any sudden noises into Maria’s brain, and she turned around to see a pink haired young woman sprawled on the ground.

                Sirius smirked as his niece picked herself up from the floor, apologizing profusely as Andromeda and her husband Ted helped her. He’d only met the girl a few times, since she was usually busy at work, but he liked her, she knew how to tell a joke, as well as take one. He’d scheduled the party for today partly so that he could be sure she could in fact come. He scanned the room to make sure none of the guests had been too startled by Tonks’ fall. He’d only made the mistake of calling her Nymphadora once, and he vowed never to do so again. It did not do to piss off an auror.

                Fortunately, only one guest seemed to have even noticed Tonks’ fall, or at least, only one was still looking in their direction. Oddly enough though, that guest was Maria. He frowned, then smiled widely as he recognized the look on her face. Maria had gotten a rather dumbfounded look on her face, and her eyes were fixed on Tonks. Sirius grinned. He knew that look. James had had that same look on his face when he first saw Lily in dress robes, the first time when his annoyance with Lily had turned into romantic interest. He’d finally found the chink in Maria’s armor. This was going to be fun.

                Maria quickly turned around and walked back to the food table to get some more punch. She had the horrible, sneaking suspicion that Sirius had seen her staring at Tonks, but she hadn’t been able to help it. After centuries of avoiding Tonks it had felt amazing to see her again, even if her brain had been screaming “Run away! Run and hide!” the whole time. She let out a deep breath and tried to calm down. She’d made it abundantly clear several times that she had no interest in dating anyone. So, even if Sirius had seen the look on her face, everything would be fine. Sirius would…respect…her wishes…Maria gave a depressed sigh. She was screwed. Maybe, if she was lucky, the arrival of Andromeda would keep Sirius distracted enough for her to slip away.

                “Wotcher!” A familiar, happy voice said from behind her. Maria repressed a wince and fought the urge to curse. It wasn’t Tonks’ fault. As she forced herself to calm down though, her old memories took hold, and suddenly she was suppressing a smile.

                “Oh, I should think so.” Maria said, turning around. Tonks blinked. That had…not been the response she’d been expecting.

                “What’s your name?” She asked.

                “Maria. Maria Evans. And you?”

                “Tonks.” Maria raised an eyebrow and decided to tease the younger woman.

                “I thought Sirius said his cousin’s last name was Tonks?”

                “It is.” Tonks replied a little irritably. “His cousin is my mother, Andromeda Tonks.”

                “So, she and your father decided to name you Tonks? As in, your name is Tonks Tonks?”

                “No, I just don’t use my first name.” Tonks said shortly.

                “Why not?” Maria asked, curiously. She knew that she was being horrible, but she couldn’t help it. And the best part was, Tonks didn’t even know that she was being horrible, because Tonks had no idea that Maria already knew the answer.

                “Because my mother’s an idiot.” Tonks said frankly.

                “Wow, you’re really determined not to tell me your first name.” Maria marveled. “I guess I’ll just have to ask Sirius.”

                “Fine. It’s Nymphadora.” Tonks growled, glaring at her. Maria winced and let out an appreciative whistle.

                “Wow, that is impressive. I mean, I know all parents dedicate themselves to embarrassing their offspring, but your parents figured out a way to do that for the rest of your life without them technically having to do anything.” Tonks gave a snort.

                “Yeah, that’s my dad’s reasoning too. Can we talk about something else now?” Maria nodded. She’d had her fun, she could be nice now.

                “Sorry, did you come over here for some food?” She asked, stepping aside. Tonks shook her head.

                “Not really. Sirius just pointed you out to me, and I figured I’d come talk to you. It’s nice to be able to talk to someone around the same age as me, most of the aurors in my group are ancient.” Maria smiled, and resolved to take everything she’d ever learned from Fred and George and unleash it on Sirius later.

                “So you’re an auror? Is that still a good job?” She asked.

                “What do you mean?” Tonks asked, frowning. “It’s fine I suppose, I wouldn’t have put so much work into it if I hated it.”

                “I’m just curious as to what you do exactly. I mean, all the Death Eaters that weren’t rich have been rounded up, and the rest are too rich to touch. The Obliviators handle the Muggles, and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement handles the regular law breakers, so I’m curious as to where that leaves you.”

                “There are still some criminals too powerful for the average DMLE worker.” Tonks said with a shrug. “And we do a lot of drills. Constant vigilance and all that. What do you do?”

                “I’m a teacher at Hogwarts. I teach the one class you always just slept through.” Tonks gave her an impressed look.

                “You teach Astronomy, Divination, and History of Magic? That’s bloody amazing.” Maria gave an appreciative laugh.

                “No, I’m afraid I just teach History of Magic.”

                “Oh, so Binns finally moved on, did he? You know, now that I think about it, he was a very impressive teacher.”

                “He was?” Maria asked, surprised. Tonks nodded earnestly.

                “Oh yes. It takes a lot of skill to make the Goblin Rebellions boring.” Maria laughed.

                “Yes, it does, doesn’t it.”

                “So, is that what you teach mainly? The Goblin Rebellions?” Maria shook her head.

                “No, I’ve only been teaching that to the first and second years. I figured the others had heard enough about them and decided to cover other topics.”

                “What?” Tonks asked, faking shock. “Are you suggesting that there were other things that happened in history besides Goblin Rebellions?” Maria laughed again. Indeed, when she’d gone through Binns lesson plans, she’d gotten the impression that the ghost didn’t know about anything else that had happened in magical history besides the Rebellions.

                “Amazingly enough, yes, I am.” Maria told her. “I taught the other classes about the war with Voldemort this last year, and I figure I’ll cover the aftermath of the war this upcoming year.” Tonks raised an eyebrow.

                “You actually call him by his name? Impressive. Even the veteran aurors won’t call him by name.”

                “I’m just as impressed.” Maria said with a grin. “You didn’t shudder, wince, scream, or faint when I said Voldemort. Besides, I don’t really see the issue here. It’s not like Voldemort’s his real name, it’s his nickname. Plus, once you find out that he had a diary, he’s not nearly as scary.” Tonks’ mouth twitched up.

                “He had a diary?” Maria nodded, grinning.

                “Yep. I mean, he put a lot of magic into it, but still, it’s a bloody diary. He didn’t even call it a journal, he called it a diary. Can you imagine what he wrote in it? ‘Dear Diary, today I torched three villages, aren’t I evil? And no, I am not compensating for the fact that my Muggle father left my mother. Where are all of these dreadful rumors coming from? They’re distinctly un-fabulous.’” Tonks started laughing.

                “’Dear Diary, today I came up with a wonderful idea. Whenever my people commit a crime, I’m going to make them leave graffiti on the scene of the crime. But not ordinary graffiti, no. We’re going to graffiti the sky!’” She said in between laughs. Maria started to laugh as well.

                “’Dear Diary, no, I’m not compensating for anything by walking around putting giant, phallic shaped snakes on everything. Plus I’ve realized that it’s too easy for people to sneak into my super-secret Death Eater club meetings. We really need something besides cheap masks anyone can conjure up and run of the mill black cloaks. So, I’ve come up with a brilliant plan. Friendship tattoos! Everyone will have to brand themselves with tattoos of my sky graffiti so I can summon them whenever I need to.’”

                “But I’m not going to make it so we can communicate with the tattoos, or so I can single out specific Death Eaters or anything, no that’d be silly.’” Tonks cut in. “’I’m just going to make it so that when I touch them, they’ll all immediately apparate to where I am, with no idea of what’s going on.’” The two began laughing helplessly, and didn’t stop for a full minute.

                “We’re horrible, aren’t we?” Maria asked when she regained control of herself. Tonks shook her head.

                “The way I see it, we need to be able to laugh about this.” She explained. “Otherwise, how can we move on?” Maria nodded.

                “Point.” Suddenly, she stopped, realizing just what she’d been doing for the last few minutes.

                “Is something wrong?” Tonks asked, frowning worriedly.

                “I just remembered that I promised to bring some ice cream.” Maria lied. “I’ll be right back.” She said, hurrying off for the door. She’d barely escaped and was leaning against the door when Sirius walked up, an eyebrow raised.

                “What’s wrong? You two seemed to be getting along great.” He asked. Maria glared at him.

                “I hate you.” She growled, heading up the stairs.

                “Where are you going?” Sirius asked.

                “I’m going to go get some ice cream.” Maria told him. “I’ll be right back.”

                “Was that really so bad?” Dear asked when Maria walked inside.

                “Yes, yes it was.” Maria snapped, double checking the lock on the doors to the phone booth. “I was joking about Voldemort. Voldemort!”

                “She’s not wrong.” Dear pointed out as Maria stalked over to the console.

                “She’s not.” Maria nodded. “It’s a great idea for them to joke about Voldemort. They need to be able to move on. Me though?” She shook her head and pulled a lever on the console, making a secondary ring of buttons rise from the hole in the center of the control console. “I need to take him seriously. If I move on, then I’ll forget my purpose.”

                “And yet, for all your protests, you seemed happy.” Dear pointed out as Maria began pressing the buttons on the second ring. “It’s been centuries since I’ve seen you be so happy.”

                “I know.” Maria said softly. “Talking to her…It felt like I was just starting out again, like I’d regressed back to that first century or so.”

                “Your first century wasn’t bad, was it?”

                “No, but most people’s childhoods weren’t bad.” Maria said. “Just because they were good times though, that doesn’t mean we should strive to recreate them. Growing up is important.”

                “It is, but…”

                “No buts.” Maria growled, hitting the last button.

                “May I ask where we’re going?” Dear asked with a sigh, deciding to drop it for now.

                “I’ve helped Harry, Sirius, and Remus.” Maria said. “Time to help Bellatrix.”

                “Yes, you’re totally not running away from your problems.” Dear said dryly.

                “I’ll be coming back a few minutes from now.” Maria snapped. “I’m just giving Sirius another single woman to focus on and, hopefully someone who’ll torment him just as much as he torments me.”

                “So, not at all then.” Dear said.

                “Can it you.” Maria growled, punching the button.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Fourteen

                Maria looked at the mirror, frowning contemplatively. She was wearing her normal black robes, since wizardly fashion, at least in terms of clothes, hadn’t changed much since the 1960’s. That still left her hair and eyes though. “What color do you think?” Maria asked, removing her contacts and putting on glasses.

                “Black.” Dear said immediately.

                “Isn’t that a little too much black?” Maria asked, experimentally turning her eyes purple, then blue, then orange, just for fun.

                “It’s Bellatrix.” Dear pointed out.

                “Fair enough.” Maria said, turning her eyes black. “Now, what about the hair?”

                “I don’t know, what was popular in the 60’s?” Dear asked.

                “Yeah, no. 60’s hair is like 80’s hair, but even less fun. No, I think I’ll go with this.” Maria tapped the top of her head with her wand and watched as her hair grew longer, eventually reaching the small of her back, and became slightly curlier as well.

                “Oh, that’s so much better than a beehive.” Dear said dryly.

                “Yes. Yes it is.” Maria retorted, removing her wand from atop her head.

                “You’re going to end up stepping on that thing” Dear told her.

                “No I won’t.” Maria said, rolling her eyes. “Now stop being silly and turn off the invisibility.” Dear sighed, and did as she asked.

_A few seconds later_

                A sixteen year old Bellatrix Black jumped and turned to stare at the phone booth that had appeared in the middle of her bedroom. “The hell?” She demanded. Her confused anger only grew when a young woman, who looked to be only a little bit older than her, stepped out of the box and walked over to her.

                “Hello, you can call me Olivia.” The woman said, holding out her hand to shake. Bellatrix stared at her for a moment.

                “Who the hell are you?” She demanded. “What is that thing? How did you get in my bedroom?”

                “Quite frankly, I’d be worried if I wasn’t in your bedroom.” Olivia said, looking around. “And I believe that’s a phone booth.”

                “Oddly enough, those are the least important of my questions.” Bellatrix growled. Olivia sighed.

                “Okay, in the simplest terms possible, I’m your imaginary friend.” Bellatrix raised a skeptical eyebrow.

                “I don’t have an imaginary friend.” She pointed out. “I’ve never had one.”

                “Well, you do now.” Olivia said with a shrug.

                “Why?” Bellatrix demanded. Olivia frowned, and then made to grab the younger woman’s wand. Bellatrix jumped back and pointed the wand at Olivia. “Why did you do that?” She demanded.

                “Before I tell you, you have to promise not to try and kill anything, or anyone.” Olivia said slowly.

                “Fine.” Bellatrix said with a shrug. “I’m not stupid enough to try and do under age magic anyway.”

                “…Remember that ‘therapist’ your parents sent you to yesterday?” Olivia asked warily. Bellatrix nodded, scowling. Her parents had decided that she needed ‘help’, that her tendency to get into fights was a bad thing, as was her fondness for being alone and the fact that she didn’t hate her cousin Sirius. “Well, he may have spiked your tea with a special potion.” Bellatrix went deathly silent, and ‘Olivia’ glanced nervously at the door, casting Muffliato when Bellatrix wasn’t looking.

                “What kind of potion?” Bellatrix growled.

                “Don’t worry, I’m the only thing it did.” Olivia said quickly.

                “What kind of potion?” Bellatrix repeated, her grip on her wand tightening. Olivia sighed.

                “I am, simply put, here to make you normal, in theory. I am the ‘physical’ manifestation of your conscience, your kinder aspects, and, well, I was also supposed to be your ‘pureblood pride’ but fortunately for the both of us, you didn’t finish the tea. My purpose, such as it is, is to follow you around and make you a ‘better person’. On the bright side though, between you only pretending to finish the tea and the strength of your personality, it’s my choice as to what constitutes a better person, not your parents’.”

                “So, you’re going to be here with me for as long as the potion lasts?” Bellatrix demanded. Olivia nodded. She gritted her teeth. “How long, exactly, is this going to last?” Olivia paused and looked around.

                “Ooh, that bed looks comfortable.” Olivia said, walking towards the bed in question.

                “Olivia…” Bellatrix growled. She didn’t want to refer to this hallucination by its name, but it was better than calling it ‘girl’ or ‘thing’. Olivia froze and winced.

                “Seven years.” She said apologetically. It usually took that long to make sure Bellatrix didn’t go evil.

“Seven years?” Bellatrix yelled. “But I didn’t even drink the whole cup!” Olivia shrugged helplessly.

“Well, a spoonful of Felix Felicis can make the entire universe revolve around you for a whole day. Potions are powerful things.”

“So, you’re saying that I’m stuck with you for seven years.” Bellatrix said slowly, glaring at Olivia, who nodded. “And you’re going to follow me around for that whole time?”

“Well, I’ll leave you alone in the bathroom, the shower, and if you end up doing…it. But yeah, otherwise I’m stuck following you around.” Bellatrix sighed, and then brightened slightly.

“Wait, you’re my conscience, right?” Olivia nodded warily.

“So, that means that, technically, I don’t have one right? I mean, it’s a lot easier to ignore you when you’re a physical being rather than an abstract concept, I just have to cast a silencing spell on you when I get to school.”

“Uh, no, sorry.” Olivia said, deciding to nip that line of thought in the bud. “I’m only physical in the sense that you now see me as a person, as opposed to a voice in your head. Spells don’t really work on me.” Bellatrix groaned.

“Why is that potion even legal?” She demanded.

“Well, technically it’s not.” Olivia said.

“What?”

“It’s not legal. But, it’s kind of impossible to prove that it was used without Veritaserum, since nobody else can see me, even if you want them to, so for all other people would know, you’ve just gone insane.”

“You say that as though I’m not already insane.” Bellatrix pointed out.

“As a figment of your imagination and a representation of a good third or your brain, I like to pretend that there’s still hope for us.” Olivia said with a shrug. “Well, you really. There’s no hope for me. I’m going to be going back into the ether of non-sentience in seven years.” Bellatrix nodded.

“So, just to summarize, we’re stuck together for seven years, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” She asked.

“Yeah, that’s the long and short of it.” Olivia told her.

“Okay, that’s…not great, but I’ll learn to live with it.” Bellatrix said. “Now explain the phone booth.” Olivia shrugged.

“What’s to explain? That’s my home. I’m not going to be sleeping in your bed after all.” Bellatrix blinked.

“Why is it a phone booth then?”

“How should I know?” Olivia asked. “It’s your brain.”

“You’re part of my brain!” Bellatrix protested.

“And you’re crazy.” Olivia said defensively. “How am I supposed to know why anything is the way it is?” Bellatrix glared at her.

“So, my brain decided that the best place to house the physical representation of my conscience was a phone booth?” She demanded.

“Apparently.” Olivia said, shrugging. “Now, is that all your questions? I’m rather tired.” Bellatrix stared at her, then sighed.

“Yes.” Olivia smiled.

“Great. See you tomorrow!” She said, turning around and walking back into the phone booth, shutting the doors behind her. Bellatrix frowned and tried to open the phone booth doors, but they were locked. “Can I help you?” Olivia asked, sticking her head back out.

“It’s locked.” Bellatrix said, frowning.

“Indeed it is.” Olivia said, nodding. “What of it?”

“Why is it locked? Isn’t it part of my brain?”

“Yes, but remember, it’s not real.” Olivia told her. “If you were to walk inside, it would represent you leaving the world and withdrawing into your mind. If you were really lucky, it would just result in you going into a coma. If you’re not lucky though, you’d die.” Bellatrix blanched and stepped back. “Smart choice.” Olivia said with a smile. “See you tomorrow.” With that, she shut the door, double checking the lock.

“Imaginary friend? Really?” Dear asked. Maria rolled her eyes and took off her glasses. “What’ll you do if she decides to do some research to try and find a way to get rid of you and can’t find any information about it?”

“It’s an illegal potion that’s at least as complicated as Felix Felicis. It stands to reason that it’d be incredibly difficult to find anything about it, especially with Dumbledore as the Headmaster.” Maria said calmly, walking over to her bed and falling back onto it. “Do me a favor? Wake me up when she wakes up.”


	15. Chapter 15

 

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter 15

                Maria woke up and stretched, then grabbed her hip flask and drained it, then reached for her contacts. “No Maria, glasses, remember?” Dear pointed out.

                “Right.” Maria sighed, summoning the object in question. “Is Bellatrix up yet?”

                “Not yet.” Dear reported.

                “Good.” Maria said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “There are certain potions…” She started to muse.

                “No.” Dear snapped. “You are not going down that road, especially not when cowardice is the only reason you’re even considering it.”

                “Excuse me?” Maria demanded. “I am a lot of horrible, despicable things, but cowardly is not one of them.”

                “Normally, I’d agree that you weren’t a coward, but there isn’t any other word for this. You know as well as I do that you can go and keep Bellatrix on the side of angels whenever, yet you chose to go during a party, when you’ll have to precisely manipulate time so nobody thinks anything weird went on, all because you’re afraid of Tonks.”

                “I’m not afraid of _her_.” Maria spat. “I’m afraid of being a selfish bitch. We both know that this isn’t how it works. I show up, maybe tell them a little, fix everything, and then move on. It’s one thing to befriend them; it’s another thing entirely to fall in love with them. That’s why I’ve avoided Tonks for the past several centuries. Tonks is going to have a husband or wife and be very happy with whoever it is. I am not messing with that. I can’t do that.”

                “You’ve changed so much already, I don’t think letting this Tonks fall in love with you is going to change much. You’re already radically changing things by changing Bellatrix’s past.”

                “I’m making things better for multiple people by helping Bellatrix. The only person helped by me seducing Tonks would be me.” She paused, then sighed. “This was a mistake. I’m going to back, and start over.”

                “Calm down.” Dear snapped. “You’re hundreds of years old, stop whining and act like it!” Maria stopped and stared at the console. “First of all, if this was a mistake, you’d have a mark on your arm at some point. You don’t. Second of all, you’re freaking out over nothing. Tonks is an auror. She’s extremely busy, the only reason she was at the party is because Sirius scheduled the party so she could come. If everything goes according to plan, which there’s no reason to believe it won’t, the Order won’t even get back together, and you’ll only end up meeting her occasionally. Face it, you’ve become far too used to routine, you’re just terrified by the change of pace. You’ve avoided talking to Tonks for hundreds of years, now you can’t handle talking to her. Face your fears and grow up.” Maria stared in silence, then sighed.

                “…You’re right.” She admitted slowly. “I’m sorry, I just don’t…Never mind. You know the reason. Just...warn me if I’m getting too close, alright? Tonks almost always lands on her feet regardless of my help, I don’t want to mess that up.”

                “Understood. Now, you better get back in character, Bellatrix is waking up.” Dear said. Maria sighed and adjusted her glasses, then walked over to the doors, fixing her hair as she did so. She really didn’t like glasses, they had a tendency to fall off, get lost, and or break, but they’d act as an extra layer of disguise in addition to the longer than normal hair so that adult Bellatrix would be less likely to make the connection between her and ‘Olivia’.

                “3…2…1.” Maria counted down. Just as she finished, Bellatrix began pounding on the doors of the phone booth. Maria had never tried this method of keeping Bellatrix away from Voldemort, but she’d spent enough time with the young version of the witch to have a fairly good idea of how she’d react to various situations. She was stubborn, extremely clever, more than a little vain, and usually tried her best to make sure _she_ came out on top, regardless of what that meant for other people. In short, the perfect Slytherin. All of this together meant that she’d be almost obsessed with getting more information from ‘Olivia’, both do to a desire to spin this into something beneficial for her, and because she’d be incredibly insulted that anyone thought she needed fixing. “Hello.” Maria said pleasantly, slipping out of the phone booth, careful to make sure Bellatrix didn’t see the inside. The last thing she needed was questions about the console. Bellatrix glared at her, though there was no real malice in the glare, just tiredness. She’d been hoping that the whole thing was just a dream, but it clearly wasn’t.

                “Dammit.” She muttered. “I don’t suppose I can get you to stay in here.”

                “Sorry.” Maria said, shaking her head and smiling apologetically. “I’m in your head. The phone booth won’t be there all the time, but I will.”

                “That’s what I thought.” Bellatrix said, resigned. “Alright, let’s go downstairs, I need to get my books from Diagon Alley.” Maria paused, then nodded, remembering that particular trait of Bellatrix’s. It had been a while since she’d been required to step in, but she remembered that Bellatrix preferred to handle these things herself, at least for now. She wouldn’t become lazy in her arrogance until Voldemort came into the picture. And there was no denying it, Bellatrix was arrogant. That would never really leave her, though over time it would lessen, so long as Maria could keep her away from the Death Eaters. “Hurry up.” Bellatrix snapped, glaring over her shoulder. Maria rolled her eyes and followed. Hurry, hurry, hurry, that’s all anybody ever did, even before and long after the wars. She appreciated haste, she never wasted time after all, but she understood the importance of slowing down and being patient.

                “What’s the rush?” Maria asked, following behind at a more sedate speed, purposefully trying to infuriate the younger woman. “They’re freaking Hogwarts textbooks; they’ll have enough books for you no matter when you arrive.”

                “Are you sure you’re really part of me?” Bellatrix demanded.

                “Fairly certain, yes.” Maria said, smirking.

                “Then how do you not know that I’m getting something besides textbooks?” Bellatrix growled.

                “I don’t remember there being a long waiting line for the other item that requires us to get it right this very second or else face certain doom.” Maria told the younger girl, raising an eyebrow. Truth be told, she had no idea what Bellatrix was talking about but, then again, she’d never really followed her as closely as she was now before, so it made sense that she might have missed something here and there.

 

                “Just…shut up, we’re going now.” Bellatrix growled, turning around and walking away. Maria chuckled to herself and followed, curious about this mystery item Bellatrix was after.

_Five minutes later_

                Maria looked around Diagon Alley appreciatively, taking in the crowds and the grand shops. The first time she’d gone this far back in the past, to before the first war with Voldemort, she’d been shocked at how impressive Diagon Alley was. While it was never ugly by any means, the Diagon Alley of her youth, the one in the years between the wars, paled in comparison to what had been. Perhaps it was because they had at first feared Voldemort would return soon due to the lack of a body, or perhaps they just didn’t have the money for it but, for whatever reason, the shop keepers and landlords had never restored their buildings to their former glory after the Death Eaters burned the majority of it to the ground. Even Gringotts hadn’t been fully restored, though that may have been more due to the Goblins’ frugality than anything else. The crowds were larger too, though with bigger shops, it made sense that the place would be able to hold much larger crowds.

                “Come on.” Bellatrix hissed under her breath.

                “Relax. I’m in your head, remember?” Maria said, waving her hand. “I can be wherever I want.” She began silently apparating to various empty places, including the top of several shops, to prove her point. Bellatrix rolled her eyes, though she smirked when Maria started walking on the heads of several shoppers. Maria wasn’t really incorporeal of course; the spell she was using was a combination/modification of a Disillusionment charm, Muffliato, and several Muggle repelling spells. The result was that nobody could see or hear her except for Bellatrix, and if they bumped into her they immediately forgot about it, as did anybody looking in her direction. She’d only recently invented the spell, so it still some work to maintain, but it was worth it. Besides, it was far more convenient than an Invisibility Cloak in crowds or a battle, and could work for large groups, once she perfected it. She paused, realizing that she’d essentially invented a Fidelius Charm that could be applied to people, and laughed. Bellatrix gave her a strange look, but moved on purposefully to Flourish and Blotts. Maria followed, wondering if the mystery item was a book.

 

                Sure enough, in addition to all of the Sixth Year textbooks, Bellatrix retrieved an old potions book that, while dusty and clearly well used, still looked impressive. Maria opened her mouth to ask what it was, and then shut it. She could wait until they got back to Black Manor and Bellatrix wouldn’t have to look like she was talking to thin air in front of a large crowd. Regardless of whether or not some or even most people already thought Bellatrix was insane, she doubted Cygnus and Druella would be pleased to receive reports of their oldest daughter talking to the air in the middle of Diagon Alley. But now her curiosity was really piqued, all the more so because the title had been worn off of the spine and Bellatrix had hidden the book among her textbooks.

_Twenty minutes later_

                Maria sat on the bed and watched as Bellatrix began packing her trunk haphazardly, not really caring about order or neatness. Admittedly, the trunk was almost bottomless, like Hermione’s bag, so it didn’t really matter. Maria glanced to the side and looked at the book Bellatrix had bought, reminding herself not to pick it up. As far as Bellatrix was concerned, Maria couldn’t interact with the world around them. “So, what’s with the book?” Maria asked casually, looking from it to Bellatrix.

                “What’s with your awful memory?” Bellatrix demanded, glaring at Maria suspiciously.

                “What?” Maria asked, confused.

                “You claim to be part of me, that you’re the manifestation of aspects of my personality, but you don’t know things that really, you should. I mean, you’re honestly going to tell me that you only separated from me yesterday, but you don’t know what this book is for?” Maria kept her face straight, but she winced internally. She’d missed that detail when she was thinking this plan through. Fortunately, her skill at dishing out BS was as sharp as ever.

                “How many times am I going to have to remind you, you didn’t finish the cup?” Maria demanded, keeping her voice even despite the fact that she was scrambling. “I am not, for lack of a better term, complete. I had to make cuts when I was forming my consciousness, and I decided to leave out some of your memories, specifically the ones that you were feeling particularly secretive about. You’re welcome.” Bellatrix stopped glaring, though she still looked a little suspicious.

                “Fine, what the hell. It’s not like I’m doing anything illegal.” Bellatrix plopped down on the bed next to Maria, somehow managing to look gracefully lazy, and grabbed the book. “This is…well, I really don’t know the title, nor do I care to.”

                “Then how did you order it?” Maria asked, confused.

                “It used to belong to the family.” Bellatrix told her, opening the book. “I was flipping through it over Christmas break, and Father got upset. Said some nonsense about Purebloods not brewing potions, that it was work for the less pure, and he sold to drive the point into my head. But, I owled Flourish and Blotts when I got back, and asked about the old book Cygnus Black had just sold, and then paid them to hold it for me.”

                “And why did you go to such lengths?” Maria asked, wariness mixing in with the curiosity. Bellatrix wasn’t evil yet, but the fact remained that the girl had a definite violent streak to her.

                “Because of this.” Bellatrix said with a huge grin, pointing at a set of ingredients. Maria scanned them, frowned, and looked at the instructions, then finally noticed the title of what she’d thought was a potion and almost fell off the bed.

                “The Sorcerer’s Stone!?!” She yelled in shock. How the hell? What was even…? What? While part of her brain was struggling to process this information, the other part was racing to try and figure out what had happened. If Bellatrix had the ability to make the Stone, why didn’t she? She’d never once encountered a Bellatrix that was in possession of the Sorcerer’s Stone, and that was throwing her for a loop.

                “Uh-huh.” Bellatrix said, her grin having turned into a smirk at Maria’s reaction. “Father never even knew it was in here, he doesn’t really care about the old books. And since the title’s gone, Flourish and Blotts never knew either.”

                “And this book was just sitting around in the family library?” Maria asked skeptically.

                “Well, no, it was in the Library Vault.” Bellatrix admitted. “But I don’t think anyone’s looked in it since my Great Grandparents’ time judging by the dust. The point is, nobody knows whats in here, and I’m going to make one.”

                “Are you sure?” Maria asked. “I mean, I doubt the Ministry’s going to just sit by and let you keep it. And what are you going to do with it? What’s your endgame?”

                “What do you mean, what’s my endgame?” Bellatrix asked, looking disgusted that Maria even had to ask. “What do you think you do with a Sorcerer’s Stone?”

                “Well, I’m just saying, it’s not like you need the gold.” Maria said with a shrug. “And if you drink the Elixir of Life, you’ll have to deal with the general stupidity of the world for the rest of eternity.”

                “I’m not planning on drinking it for all eternity.” Bellatrix said with a shrug. “I figure I’ll keep drinking it until Cissy, Andy, and little baby Sirius are old and grey. It’ll drive them crazy trying to figure out how I’m doing it.” She laughed at this thought, and Maria chuckled. She was right; it would drive all of them crazy, especially Sirius. “And you can never have too much gold. I know Cissy’s going to get married, but if Andy doesn’t, I don’t want to have to rely solely on the money I’m sharing with her.”

                “So…no boyfriend then?” Maria asked, wanting to confirm that she wouldn’t have to break up a relationship.

 

                “Nope. And I don’t plan on one anytime soon.” Bellatrix said, closing the book and getting up to carefully hide it in her trunk. “A husband wouldn’t be anything but a drain on my bank vault.” Maria smirked and wondered if Bellatrix would ever love, or at least be happy with, Rudolphous Lestrange. Having met the man, she doubted it.


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Sixteen

                Maria watched as Bellatrix shoved her trunk into the storage compartment her parents had reserved for their three daughters. All in all, it was a good thing that this was Bellatrix, and not Hermione or Ginny or…well, a wholely sane person. If it was, people would be wondering why she refused to let anybody touch her trunk, why she refused to let it leave her sight. Fortunately, it was Bellatrix, and so people expected weird, perhaps even paranoid behavior from the young witch. She decided to comment on this, just to see what reaction she’d get. It had become a bit of a pastime for her, saying whatever came to mind. She found that Bellatrix was more receptive of these kinds of things this time around, since she thought that Maria was technically her. Bellatrix chuckled and climbed into the train, heading for the last compartment of the last car, which everyone knew was hers. Returning students had even taken to warning the first years not to sit there.

                “There are fringe benefits to everything.” She told Maria after casting Muffliato on the door. Maria frowned.

                “Where’d that spell come from? I don’t remember learning it in Charms.” Bellatrix rolled her eyes. The gaps in ‘Olivia’s’ memory had stopped being suspicious and were instead just exasperating.

                “Severus invented it.” Bellatrix told her. Maria nodded. Bellatrix hadn’t really gotten on her pureblood high horse until Voldemort had shown up and treated her like a person, rather than just a dangerous, crazed animal that might snap at any moment, so she was allowed to be friends with a half blood.

                “He might be helpful with the Stone.” Maria suggested. All in all, letting Snape make a Stone wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe it would make him confident enough that you wouldn’t fall back on ‘Blood Purity’ to make himself feel good and lose his friendship with Lily. She wasn’t too worried. She’d messed with time enough to know that, unfortunately for Snape, he and Lily never got together unless she took direct action to make it so, which she never did. Perhaps it was unfair to the poor man, and maybe she was being petty, but it wasn’t like she didn’t know plenty of people who’d found happiness as bachelors, and besides, hooking the two up meant Harry wouldn’t be born, which would mean that the whole future she’d just dedicated a year to starting to fix would be FUBAR.

                “No!” Bellatrix said forcefully. “Dumbledore always knows everything we Slytherins are planning, whether or not it’ll actually hurt something. He must be overhearing us somehow. It stays between us, got it?” Maria nodded. She was starting to get a sinking feeling in her stomach with regards to why Bellatrix had never completed her work on the Stone. She liked Dumbledore, usually, though she’d seen him do horrible things for ‘The Greater Good’ with disturbingly increasing frequency. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, constituted ‘The Greater Good’ either. She’d dedicated her extremely long life to making things better after all, but she’d managed to avoid doing anything as bad as some of what she’d seen Dumbledore do. Maria frowned and decided to ask him at some future point in time.

                “As you wish Bella.” She told the other girl. Bellatrix spluttered and stared at her.

                “Wh…What did you just call me?” She demanded.

                “Bella.” Maria said, smiling widely. She found Bellatrix’s reactions to the shortening of her name to be fascinating, and rather funny. The strangest part of it all was that Bellatrix had a far more upset reaction when someone she liked romantically called her Bella than when a friend did. She wasn’t sure why that was, but it was interesting.

                “But…Why?” Bellatrix demanded. Maria shrugged.

                “Bellatrix is too long.” She told her.

                “It is not!”

                “Yes it is. I want to shorten it, so I am. From now on, I shall endeavor to call you Bella. It is your new nickname.” Bellatrix growled.

                “No, it’s not.”

                “It’s either Bella or Trixie.” Maria told her with mock sternness. Bellatrix glared at her, but Maria glared right back, giving a perfect imitation of Bellatrix’s own glare. They sat like that for a few moments, then Bellatrix sighed.

                “Fine, Bella.” She said, giving in and choosing the more respectable name. At least Bella Black could still sound intimidating, if somebody at least knew of her. Nobody would ever be intimidated by Trixie. Just thinking the name made Bellatrix shudder. Suddenly, their compartment door opened, and Lucius Malfoy leaned in, smirking. Maria jumped and glared at the young Malfoy even though she knew he couldn’t see her. Dear had once suggested that she try and change Lucius too, thereby making things better for both him and Draco. Time travel did make it so that she could be in two places at once, technically, so she didn’t even have to stop helping Bellatrix. Maria thought about it for a bit, then said no. Bellatrix had earned the changes Maria was making. Even without Maria’s meddling, the woman still earned her respect. Lucius, like Peter, had done neither. And Draco hadn’t ended up too badly without her help, aside from his horrible choice in baby names. He fell into the same category as Snape. She didn’t hate him or like him, she was just indifferent. She’d make sure he didn’t die, but that was it.

                “Hello Bellatrix.” Lucius drawled, leaning against the door frame. “Talking to yourself, are you? That’s not going to help convince people that you’re not crazy you know.” Bellatrix gave him a look that was half contempt, half boredom.

                “Hello Lucius. Spying on people is decidedly rude and rather common.” She said, leaning back in her seat. “Disabling a spell designed for privacy even more so.” Maria watched with amusement as Lucius flushed slightly, but quickly recovered.

                “As a friend of your family, it is my duty to make sure you don’t do anything…embarrassing.” Bellatrix gave a harsh laugh.

                “A friend of your family’s bank accounts you mean.” She said, smirking. “And what makes you think I care about embarrassing my family?” Lucius opened his mouth to retort, but Bellatrix cut him off, leaning forward. “And you know, even if I did, I wouldn’t have embarrassed anyone because I cast Muffliato on the door you imbecile. So why don’t you leave and go compare hair care techniques with the other girls in our year before I get upset?” Bellatrix partially drew her wand, and Lucius made a hasty, though theoretically dignified, retreat, and Bellatrix laughed as she shut the door and recast Muffliato.

                “How did he know you’d cast that spell?” Maria asked curiously, adjusting herself so she was lying across the seat, her head propped up against the window.

                “It’s not that hard to detect once you know what it is.” Bellatrix said with a shrug, lying down and mirroring Maria. “The ringing in your ears being limited to one area gives it away.” She paused, then flicked her wand, casting a proximity alarm charm on the door just in case.

                “That seems like a design flaw.” Maria said. She’d never had someone detect her Muffliato, but she supposed that she had more or less rediscovered the spell, so nobody really knew it existed when she started using it, and as she aged it would have gotten more subtle due to more power.

                “Yeah, but Severus and I can’t figure out any way to make the ringing unnoticeable without breaking the spell. It barely works in the castle anyway. I think somebody’s enchanting the walls so they reject the spell, but I can’t figure out who’s doing it. It’s all I can do to take them down when I find them.” Another piece of the puzzle fell into place for Maria, and she frowned slightly. She didn’t like the picture she was starting to see. So far she had the word For, and hints of The. She hoped she was wrong.

                “What’s wrong?” Bellatrix asked, frowning. Maria waved away her concern.

                “Nothing, just a stray thought.” She assured Bellatrix. “Well, that and a sudden whiff of Malfoy’s hair gel. He uses a lot, doesn’t he.” Bellatrix laughed.

                “Yes he does.” She agreed. “The stupid boy uses more than I do.” Maria raised an eyebrow.

                “You use hair gel?” She asked skeptically, looking at the wild mass of curls that was Bellatrix’s hair.

                “Nope.” Bellatrix said.

                “So, it’s not exactly an accomplishment to use more hair gel than you.” Maria pointed out. Bellatrix glared at her.

                “Fine. He uses more hair gel than Andy and Cissy.” She said, rolling her eyes.

                “That’s better.” Maria said with a grin. Bellatrix rolled her eyes and punched Maria in the shoulder. Bellatrix had decided that since Maria was a figment of her imagination, she should be able to imagine touching her. Maria hadn’t really been able to come up with a good argument against her logic, so she’d modified her spell slightly to allow it. She’d made it clear that spells wouldn’t work like that though, and she didn’t want to risk setting a building on fire due to exasperation with ‘Olivia’. Bellatrix wasn’t so sure about not wanting to set buildings on fire, but she eventually agreed.

_Four hours later_

                Maria stood behind Bellatrix in the Great Hall. She’d originally planned on spending the feast time making sure that Dear was safely placed in the Slytherin common room, but her mental puzzle had convinced her to stay and test a theory. She reached out with her own Legilimency and lightly slipped into Bellatrix’s mind. She didn’t feel any guilt about what she was doing. She wasn’t meddling with the girl’s thought processes, or even reading what was in there. She was using Occlumency in tandem with her Legilimency to make sure that nothing of Bellatrix’s ended up in her head. She was just there to act as a safeguard for Bellatrix’s private thoughts, specifically the ones about the Stone. If she was right, she’d be seen any minute now. Maria scanned the Head Table and sighed.

                Sure enough, Dumbledore was staring at her, a troubled frown on his face. Maria glared at him, effortlessly batting aside his attempts to get into her and Bellatrix’s minds. The charm she’d cast the unfortunate weakness that anybody who used Legilimency on Bellatrix would be able to see her. The bright side though, was that she was now a distraction, keeping Dumbledore from prying further into Bellatrix’s mind and secrets.  Dumbledore frowned in concentration, and did his best to knock her aside. Maria brushed it aside and gave him a vicious smirk befitting a piece of Bellatrix’s psyche. Dumbledore was powerful, she would never deny that. But he was still a teenager compared to her, and she could handle him. She thrust outward with her own Legilimency, piercing his defenses. She left a brief message, telling him to meet her on the floor of the Grand Staircase at midnight, then withdrew. She glanced down and was relieved to discover that Bellatrix hadn’t noticed a thing. Dumbledore was subtle at least.

_Four hours later_

                Maria paced calmly down along the floor of the Grand Staircase, watching the stairs moving. She loved the Grand Staircase, though she couldn’t really put her finger on why. Maybe it was just the fact that it was always moving, and that it provided a means of getting from one place to another, giving students access to places they could never reach otherwise. “Professor.” She said calmly as a spear tried to penetrate her Occlumency barriers. “You may call me Olivia.” She told him coolly in response to the unspoken question, turning around to face him. Dumbledore stood there, staring at her intently. “Tell me Professor, where do you get off reading the minds of your students?” She demanded, glaring at him. Maria had done plenty of things people might consider less than ethical, but that was a line she did not cross. If she used Legilimency, it was on people who were using Legilimency against her, or with the other person’s consent. She wanted to hear him defend his actions.

                “I have a right to protect my students Olivia.” Dumbledore said calmly. “You are clearly magical in origin, and were not present in Miss Black’s mind last year. You pose a potential threat.”

                “Bullshit.” She snapped, wishing that her disguise allowed for a wand. “You had no idea I was there until after you attempted to read Bellatrix’s mind. Moreover, you just showed your hand boy. You admitted that you read her mind last year.” Dumbledore raised an eyebrow.

                “You have skill in Occlumency and Legilimency, true, but you’re displaying an unwarranted level of arrogance.” Maria smirked.

                “No. No I’m not. You’ve crossed a sacred line, and now I’m pissed off. You see, I’m a figment of Bellatrix’s imagination, more or less. You can only see me because you invaded Bellatrix’s mind. Do you get what I’m saying? We have left the world of wandwork behind, and moved to the battlefield of the mind. And since Bellatrix is asleep, that means that her mind can fully devote itself to aiding me. You don’t just face me and the magic that brought me into sentience, you now face the full force of Bellatrix Black’s subconscious and intellect. If you fight me, you will lose.”

                “I am 86 Olivia.” Dumbledore said calmly. “Miss Black is talented yes, and extremely intelligent, but you cannot hope to defeat me.”

                “I don’t want to fight you.” Maria told him. And it was true. Fighting him would raise more questions than she wanted, and she did have a deep respect for the man. The problem though, was that he was crossing a line she held sacred, and she needed to change that. She had seen what happened when a Well Intentioned Extremist Dumbledore was left unchecked, and she did not want to let that happen here. Obviously he’d changed over time, but she wanted to change him even earlier. He would stay out of Bellatrix’s mind, or she would show exactly what she could do without a wand. “Believe it or not, Bellatrix has a deep respect for you, or at least your strength. I’d rather avoid fighting you. But as a being of thought, I believe in the sanctity of the mind, something that your 86 years obviously have not taught you.” Dumbledore’s eyes flashed, and he seemed to age in front of her.

                “There is a war on the horizon.” He said heavily. “It has already begun, but nobody will see it, however often I warn them. Soon it will sweep our country, and I will do whatever is necessary to protect as many people as possible.”

                “At what cost?” She asked softly. “What will you lose in pursuit of protecting ‘The Greater Good’? How do you benefit by invading the minds of Bellatrix, and, I assume, the other Slytherins?”

                “The war will be caused by the Purebloods, particularly those that favor Slytherin and its values.” Dumbledore informed her.

                “And you think the entire House will suddenly take up arms and fight against the Muggleborns?” Maria asked sarcastically.

                “Not the entire House, no. But the oldest will, certainly. And the younger ones may have overheard things their parents or older siblings have said, things that will be most beneficial to my efforts to limit the upcoming war.”

                “Once again-at what cost? You believe that the oldest members of the Slytherin House will join the attacking army, but rather than attempting to keep them from joining the evil doers, you wish to raid their minds. For a man who was willing to give Gellert Grindelwald endless chances, you seem rather determined not to give your own students any.”

                “Look at what my forgiveness did.” Dumbledore said darkly, and Maria realized what had happened. Gellert’s horrors had caused him to go from giving too many chances to giving far too few. It would only be when he saw the new horrors caused by his former students under Voldemort’s orders that he’d settle for a middle ground. Maria stared at him, her face softening.  She briefly wondered what would have happened to _her_ if Tonks had gone evil, but quickly cast that thought aside.

                “You gave Gellert chances when he wanted none, after he was already lost. You have given these students none before most of them have even stumbled, let alone fallen. Your chances will not save all of them, but isn’t it better to at least try and save some of them? Even a small success is better than a total failure.” With that, she turned and left, silently apparating to the Slytherin common room. She’d considered threatening him, but decided against it. It wouldn’t help. If he invaded Bellatrix’s mind again, she’d retaliate, but otherwise she’d institute an informal truce.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Notes
> 
> Thanks for reading guys! Please review! See you next time!


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Seventeen

                Maria sat perched on the potions stool next to Bellatrix, frowning in concern. She didn’t like that she could sit on the stool. Well, she did like being able to sit down instead of standing all day, but she didn’t like what her ability to sit represented. Now that they were in N.E.W.T. Classes (well, Bellatrix was. Maria technically wasn’t part of the class after all) there were only six people in the Potions classroom. As a result, everybody had taken to sitting as far away from Bellatrix as possible. Bellatrix acted like it didn’t bother her and, to an extent, Maria figured that it didn’t. She understood the need for privacy, and that just as many people hated socializing as other lived for it. So, she wasn’t worried by the fact that Bellatrix wasn’t working with anyone per se. What did worry her though was the feeling of rejection she could sense. Whether or not Bellatrix wanted to work with the other students wasn’t the issue. What was the issue was that they hadn’t given her the option to work with her, instead very obviously keeping their distance.

                Bellatrix frowned and tapped her wand on a sheet of parchment. Maria glanced down at the words that were forming and rolled her eyes. “I am not trying to mother you.” She snorted. Bellatrix kept her eyes on her potion, but tapped the paper again. “What do you mean, you can feel the worry rolling off of me?” Maria demanded. “Exactly that does not explain anything.” Maria told her. “Fine, I’ll stop feeling anything! No, I am not being petulant. Shut up.” Bellatrix chuckled and tapped the paper once more, wiping away the words, then returned all of her attention to the potion. Maria sighed. She found that the longer she spent with Bellatrix, the more she was losing her feeling of detachment. Spending large amounts of time with anybody you actually liked had that effect.

                It didn’t help that Tonks seemed to have taken far more of her own personality from young Bellatrix than her own mother. Maria wondered how that worked. Maybe it was not growing up with a rather crazy and blood obsessed family, or not spending most of her life in a war. Maria shook her head, frustrated. She’d spent the last few centuries carefully manipulating things so that she never met Tonks. And it had worked. But ever since she’d met Tonks at the party, the pink haired witch had kept working her way back into Maria’s thoughts.  It was…pleasantly annoying. That was the only way Maria could think of to describe it. She didn’t want to think about Tonks, but it wasn’t painful to do so anymore. Maria started to wonder where Tonks had gotten her clumsiness, since she’d never seen Bellatrix, Andromeda, or Ted display anywhere near that level of clumsiness, then caught herself again.

                Bellatrix jumped slightly as ‘Olivia’ started banging her head on the table in frustration. Bellatrix stared at her for a moment, then sighed and gathered her potion up into a flask, putting a cork in it and sealing it, then casting an additional charm to reinforce the glass. Past experience had taught her to always make sure it was impossible for anyone but Slughorn to do _anything_ to her potions. She stood up, walked over to the front desk, handed her potion to Slughorn, then returned to her table and vanished the potion before gathering up her stuff. Bellatrix walked out of the class, her imaginary friend close behind. The second she left the classroom, what felt like fifty gallons of water fell from the ceiling, drenching her. Bellatrix let out an angry shriek, and she pushed her hair out of her eyes just in time to see her cousin Sirius and his stupid little friends running away, laughing. She went for her wand. “No.” Maria told her, smacking her lightly on the back of the head. Bellatrix whirled around and glared, then turned back, only to find the little brats were already gone. Bellatrix headed for her common room, swearing under her breath.

                Once she was in her dormitory, Bellatrix locked the door, sealing it with several spells. She was alone, and if somebody wanted to be let in well, tough. “Why did you stop me from hurting those brats?” She snapped, turning to glare at Maria.

                “Because Bella, you need to learn a way to deal with idiots besides violence. Violence, you see, has it’s time and place. That time and place was not now. You don’t need another detention.”

                “Then how do you suggest I get them back? And if you tell me to just turn the other cheek Olivia, so help me I will…”

                “I was thinking a prank of your own.” Maria said calmly. “Specifically, try page 157 in your potion’s book.” Bellatrix frowned suspiciously, but opened her bag and pulled out her textbook. She flipped through the pages, then threw back her head and laughed.

                “Oh, you are brilliant you are.” She said.

                “Of course I’m brilliant, I’m you.” Maria told her with a smirk. “It’ll take a few days to complete, but that’ll just let them get even more paranoid.”

                “Yes it will.” Bellatrix said with a short cackle. This was going to be fun.

_Three days later_

                Sirius frowned as something bumped against him, then shrugged as he saw James slipping into the seat next to him. It must have just been James trying to get into the seat. He shook his head. His best friend’s appetite was truly ridiculous.

 Bellatrix chuckled to herself as she walked away from the Gryffindor table and back to the Slytherins. Her cousin and his friends were in for a big surprise. She’d cast a simple Disillusionment charm on herself. It wasn’t perfect, and it wouldn’t have stood up to close scrutiny from an adult that knew what they were looking for, but it had done the trick for what she’d just done.

                Remus rolled his eyes. Somehow, without speaking a word, James and Sirius had decided to engage each other in an eating contest. Peter was anxiously watching, trying to decide who was winning. Remus chuckled to himself, then frowned. His voice hadn’t sounded right. It had been deeper than normal, and a bit raspier too. Confused, he reached for his fork, then stared in horror. His hand was _old_! It was wrinkled, and there were brown spots on it, just like his grandfather’s! Peter started screaming, and his head snapped up. His eyes widened even more as he realized that, whatever was happening to him was happening to his friends. James and Sirius stared at the other two, then at each other, and screamed. All four of them stopped screaming at the same, everybody’s eyes on them. There was silence for a few minutes, but then…

                Maria grinned as Bellatrix’s crackling laugh filled the air of the Great Hall. The aging potion had worked perfectly. She liked three of the four Marauders, but all the same, she recognized that James and Sirius were rather arrogant little pricks at this point in time, and that they could stand to be knocked down a peg or two. She hadn’t really wanted to do anything to Lupin, but she couldn’t come up with a good reason for Bellatrix to not slip him the potion. Besides, she seriously doubted he’d done anything to keep the others from pranking Bellatrix, except for possibly warning them about the severe bodily harm she’d dish out if she caught them. Peter and Lupin fled to the Hospital Wing, but James and Sirius (being made of sterner, if less intelligent, stuff) went for Bellatrix. Specifically, they shuffled towards the Slytherin table, their bones and joints stiff with age. They made a rather ridiculous sight, and most of the other students were laughing now as well.

                “Yes?” Bellatrix drawled as the two finally reached her, smirking.

                “Change us back!” Sirius snapped, glaring at her.

                “I’m afraid, dear cousin, that I can’t do that.” Bellatrix said, still smirking. “You see, I slipped you four an aging potion, which, of course, requires an antidote, not a counter spell. So, you can either wait in vain for me to make the antidote, wait for it to wear off, or shuffle up the stairs to the Hospital Wing.” The two stared at her furiously, then turned and shuffled off, trying to somehow maintain some form of dignity and utterly failing.

                “Well, I’d better go and make sure the Hospital Wing has the correct antidote.” Slughorn announced loudly, getting up from the Staff Table. As he passed by Bellatrix, they heard him whisper “Fifty points to Slytherin for expertly making such a complicated potion!” Bellatrix grinned, and Maria grinned back at her.

_Twelve hours later_

                Bellatrix was frowning in concentration at the direction list for the Sorcerer’s Stone when Lucius and Rudolphous walked into the Common Room and headed right for her. Bellatrix didn’t look up, though she nodded when Maria hissed a warning to her. “What do you want boys?” She asked lazily, not looking up from the book in her lap. Maria glanced around, and wasn’t surprised to see that everyone was clearing out. Bellatrix was considered the best witch in the school, even if she wasn’t considered the best or nicest person, and Rudolphous and Lucius had their wands out. No student would want to get involved in a fight between the three.

                “What was that?” Rudolphous demanded before Lucius could say anything. Bellatrix didn’t look up.

                “What was what?” She asked.

                “In the Great Hall today! At breakfast!” The angry boy snapped. Bellatrix shrugged. The author of the potions book had felt that every potion should only fit on one page at a time, which made it very hard to read the more complicated potions due to the smallness of the print.

                “My stupid brat of a cousin and his friends soaked me to the bone in front of the Potions’ classroom. I figured I’d prank them back.”

                “So you stooped to their level.” Rudolphous spat. Bellatrix glared up at him, finally taking her eyes away from her book.

                “Excuse me?” She asked slowly.

                “What my friend means,” Lucius said smoothly, stepping in. “Is that we find ourselves wondering why you chose to prank them back, instead of fighting back. It is most unlike you, and rather disappointing.”

                “Disappointing how?” Bellatrix asked icily, closing the book.

                “Pranks are for Gryffindors and small children, not for Slytherins of our age, and certainly not for one from as noble a house as yours.” Lucius told her calmly. Bellatrix raised an eyebrow and slipped the book into the secret pocket of her dress.

                “You’re saying that it’d be more ‘Slytherin’ of me to attack them outright? I’d say that it’s more of a Gryffindor thing than a Slytherin one.” Maria frowned thoughtfully. Bellatrix was right. If anything, these two should be congratulating for her clever revenge, not admonishing her. This didn’t make any sense. Her mind went off every which way, trying to figure out their angle.

                “Look, let’s make this simple.” Rudolphous snapped. Maria rolled her eyes. It was so like the idiot. No real subtlety in him, just ‘Attack, Attack, Attack!’. The best he could do was lay in wait for his prey, which any animal could do. “Don’t do something so stupid again. Hurt them, don’t sink to their level.” Lucius backed away slightly, obviously uncomfortable with the violent way this conversation had turned. Maria guessed that his wand had been drawn more as a matter of course, perhaps with the intent to intimidate Bellatrix, than actual intent to use it. Bellatrix scowled and drew her crooked wand.

                “ **Don’t** order me around Rudolphous.” She growled.

                “Or what?” Rudolphous scoffed. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Now stop resisting you stupid little bint, and start taking orders like a good girl, or I’ll…” They never learned what he’d do, as Bellatrix lashed out with her wand, sending Rudolphous flying across the Common Room and slamming into the wall. Bellatrix then turned to look at Lucius.

                “Do you have a problem too?” She asked. Lucius shook his head rapidly, looking rather pale. “Good. Now get rid of that idiot and go.” Bellatrix growled, turning around and stomping off to the girls’ dormitories. Maria followed, keeping her eyes on Lucius. Once they were safely in Bellatrix’s bed with the curtains drawn, Bellatrix leaned back and stared up at Maria, who was floating above her. Maria had taken to using a levitation charm on herself when they discussed things at night, since it allowed Bellatrix more leg room. “So, what do you think the point of that was?” Bellatrix asked. Maria raised an eyebrow.

                “You don’t think they were telling the truth?” She asked, curious about Bellatrix’s take on the events. Bellatrix shook her head.

                “Did you notice that Rudolphous and Lucius never _really_ said why they were upset, just that they were upset? They never gave a legitimate, intelligent reason? If it had just been Rudolphous, I might have bought it, but Lucius is smarter than that, if only barely. At the very least he’s subtler. There’s an ulterior motive here, I just can’t figure out what.”

                “Let me worry about that.” Maria said, waving her hand. “I can focus on it 24/7. You just worry about schoolwork and getting the Stone complete.” Bellatrix frowned.

                “You’re rather insistent that I finish the Stone. Why is that?” She asked. Maria shrugged.

                “I do actually care about you. If you don’t finish the Stone, you’ll either try and steal one from Nicholas Flamel or you’ll break into the Department of Mysteries. Either way, you’ll end up seriously hurt at least. Oddly enough, this is the safest way.” ‘Plus, this’ll make the most likely outcome of this whole venture much less awkward.’ She thought to herself. While Bellatrix was very good at regaining her youth, Maria figured it’d be even better if she never lost it in the first place. Bellatrix smirked.

                “You’re probably right.” She said, nodding.

                “There’s no probably about it.” Maria told her, smirking back. “You’re smart, but also arrogant enough to try something that reckless.”

                “There’s nothing wrong with being confident.” Bellatrix retorted.

                “There’s a fine line between being confident and being arrogant.”

                “Not when it’s justified.” Maria rolled her eyes.

                “Goodnight Bella.”

                “Goodnight.” Bellatrix said, rolling over in her bed and pulling the blankets over herself. Maria slipped out of the bed, heading for Dear.


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer-I don’t own Harry Potter

Chapter Eighteen

                Maria stood behind Sirius and James, leaning over their shoulders and examining their notes. She frowned to herself. It wasn’t the same spell formula she was familiar with, but she supposed that it was to be expected when you had two boys working on creating the animagus spell on their own. It worried her slightly, since the spell wasn’t something you wanted to risk screwing up, but since James, Sirius, and even Peter had never suffered any ill effects, she supposed it was fine. As she inspected it, she was relieved to see that they hadn’t worked in the specific incantations that would designate the animal they’d turn into. She had a feeling that Bellatrix wouldn’t want to turn into a deer or a dog, and she definitely wouldn’t want to turn into a rat.

                Truth be told, she’d rather just hand over her own formula, but she needed to give Bellatrix an alibi, since the girl clearly hadn’t been putting the right type of research in if she was planning on being an animagus. So, she’d pretend to copy down the Marauders’ notes and give them to Bellatrix. Satisfied that she’d properly memorized their notes, she turned and left, going through the portrait hole. Now, if Sirius or anybody else ever asked how Bellatrix had managed to become an animagus, she could honestly say she’d stolen Sirius’ notes. Maria pulled a marble out of her pocket and transformed it into a piece of parchment, stole a quill out of a student’s pocket, cast a spell to make it perpetually inked, and began writing as she headed down to the Slytherin dormitories, rising above the heads of all but the tallest students so she wouldn’t get accidentally jostled. The other people might not be able to see or feel her, but she could feel them.

                “Where have you been?” Bellatrix asked when Maria slipped inside the bed.

                “Cheating.” Maria said with a smirk, waving the sheet of parchment. Bellatrix frowned and took the parchment from her, her eyebrows shooting up when she saw what it contained.

                “Is this real?” She asked, inspecting it. Maria shrugged.

                “That depends on your definition of real. Technically, it’s just a figment of your imagination, so no. On the other hand though, our brains automatically record everything we see, so it’s always there, even if we can’t remember it, so it is the full and complete spell formula for the animagus spell.” Bellatrix rolled her eyes.

                “You realize you could have just said ‘yes, it is the complete spell’, right?” She asked. Maria shrugged again, and Bellatrix rolled her eyes back, then turned to the parchment again. “Where did you get it?”

                “Your cousin and his friends are working on it. Don’t ask me why, but they are. I compared it against what we’ve seen in Transfiguration and Charms, and seems to check out. All you really need to do is work out the specific incantations that’ll lock in your animal form.” Bellatrix turned the paper over in her hands a few times, looking at it from every angle.

                “Any ideas on what I should go with?” She asked curiously.

                “Not a dragon.” Maria told her quickly. Bellatrix raised an eyebrow in surprise, and Maria hastened to explain. “Trust me, you don’t want to try and turn into a magical animal. Bad things happen to those who try.” She’d considered it herself. For some reason, the idea of turning into a Hungarian Horntail really appealed to her.  But the magic that was a fundamental part of a dragon had caused too many problems with the spell formula to be worth it.

                “I suppose you think I should get started on this now, instead of the Stone?” Bellatrix asked, conjuring some parchment and a quill and beginning to copy down the formula into a form she could keep with her at all times.

                “It makes sense.” Maria pointed out. “We’ve already concluded that you can’t actually begin work on the Stone yet. You’ve got the process down flat, but you can’t get half the ingredients yet, and there’s nowhere to hide the cauldron and other equipment yet. Might as well work on something you can actually achieve.” Bellatrix frowned, then sighed and nodded.

                “Fine. But if you try and get me to turn into something stupid like a _deer_ , I’ll…”

                “You’ll what?” Maria asked with a smirk. “Spells don’t work on me, remember?” Bellatrix glared at her.

                “I can still grab you though. I’ll grab you by the back of the neck, drag you to Myrtle’s bathroom, and give you a swirly.”

                “Swirlies, really? What are you, ten?”

                “I think dunking your head in a public toilet and flushing is a viable punishment no matter how old you are.” Bellatrix retorted. Maria frowned, and then nodded.

                “True.” She admitted. “And trust me, I will never tell you that you should turn into a doe.” That would be extremely awkward later on, she thought.

                “Good. Now be quiet, I need to think.” Bellatrix muttered, staring distractedly at the parchment.” Maria chuckled and slipped out of the bed, heading back downstairs. She was genuinely curious about what Bellatrix would choose. The girl’s animagus form was almost always different. Surprisingly enough, snakes were in the minority.

_Twelve hours later_

                Bellatrix was sitting in the library, pouring over a rather complicated Transfiguration book for the remainder of the animagus spell formula, when Maria noticed Rabastan Lestrange heading towards them. Maria frowned. She’d had limited interactions with Rabastan over the years. He was smarter than his brother, but not by much, being just smart enough to realize that politeness could, in certain cases, yield better results than rudeness. He was certainly more pleasant than Rudolphous, his personality being closer to Lucius’ than his brother’s, and he could be surprisingly protective of his sibling, but she didn’t know much else besides that. In the scheme of things, Rabastan was even less of an entity than his brother, which was saying something. “Here comes Rabastan.” She warned, nudging Bellatrix, who grunted but said nothing, focusing on her book. She did, however, slip her wand out of the holster she was wearing on her forearm, placing it in her lap within easy, quick, reach. Maria nodded and rose up in the air slightly, looking around to see if Rabastan had brought any friends with him. Surprisingly enough, it appeared that he hadn’t.

                “Hello Bellatrix.” He said pleasantly.

                “What do you need Rabastan?” Bellatrix asked, looking up and casually closing the book.

                “Well, first of all, I wish to apologize for my brother’s beastly behavior.” Rabastan began. Bellatrix raised an eyebrow at him.

                “It’s been a week since that little fight. I’d say you’re a little late.” Maria winced slightly as Rabastan’s pleasant mask twitched slightly in anger.

                “Well, my brother had been doing everything in his power to keep me unaware of his little spat with you I’m afraid. And better late than never, right?”

                “Depends on the situation, though I suppose this one isn’t too bad. Very well, I accept your apology. Now, what was the second thing?” Rabastan blinked.

                “Second thing?” He asked stupidly.

                “You started this conversation with a ‘first of all’.” Bellatrix pointed out. “That usually means you wish to bring up a second thing.”

                “Yes, right. Well, as you may have noticed, things in the wizarding world aren’t doing very well right now…” Rabastan started.

                “Don’t give me your recruitment speech drivel.” Bellatrix growled. “Come right out and say what you want, or don’t say anything.” Rabastan paused, a little thrown off by Bellatrix cutting off his Lucius esque speech, and then rallied. 

                “Yes, well, simply put, the most powerful wizard to ever exist is coming here to the Hogwarts grounds. His name is Lord Voldemort…” Maria tensed slightly at the mention of the name, but Bellatrix didn’t seem to notice. “And he is looking for, and recruiting, the best Hogwarts has to offer to help him change the world for the better. You, Bellatrix have been invited to join us tonight, in the Forbidden Forest.” Bellatrix stared at him as if he were an idiot.

                “You want me to go with you, your brother, and a bunch of other guys, into the Forbidden Forest, at night, alone.” She repeated. Rabastan flushed.

                “It wouldn’t be like that!” He snapped.

                “Sure it wouldn’t. Because you’d tell me if it was.” Bellatrix said condescendingly. “Do yourself a favor and get out before I hurt you like I hurt your brother.” Rabastan stared at her angrily, then turned around and stormed off. Bellatrix waited until he was gone, then cast Muffliato and a perimeter alarm spell, and then opened up her book. “So, who’s this Lord Voldemort?” Bellatrix asked, looking at her book.

                “Excuse me?” Maria asked, startled.

                “Please. I noticed you stiffening when Rabastan brought him up. So? Who is he?”

                “I’m not certain. But I’ve noticed a recent trend of late, with an increase in _organized_ violence, especially against muggles. There’s too many to be a coincidence, but all the same, it’s too subtle for the apparent perpetrators to be the actual perpetrators.  I think we’ve got an aspiring Dark Lord on our hands, sitting in the background and pulling the strings.” Bellatrix nodded, considering. It made sense, even if it was rather simplified.

                “Maybe I should go then.” She said slowly. “I could take him out before…”

                “No!” Maria snapped. “Rabastan never said how many people would be coming with them, remember? At the very least it’ll be him, his brother, and Lucius in addition to this Dark Lord. You’re good Bella, but not that good yet.” Bellatrix gave her a rebellious look, and Maria realized she’d said the wrong thing by suggesting that there might be something Bellatrix couldn’t handle by herself. She needed to distract the girl before she did something stupid out of sheer stubbornness. A thought occurred to her. “Look, Bella, follow me.” She said, walking over the table towards the doors. Bellatrix glared after her, then sighed and shoved the book into her bag, following her.

                “Alright, now, walk back and forth here three times.” Maria said, indicating the space where the Room of Requirement appeared. “Think about your dormitory while you’re doing so.” Bellatrix raised an eyebrow, but did as Maria requested, her eyes widening in surprise as the door appeared. “Miss Black, meet the Room of Requirement.” Maria said with a smile as Bellatrix opened the door and walked in. She entered and Bellatrix closed the door.

                “What exactly does this room do?” Bellatrix asked, looking around in surprise.

                “Whatever you want.” Maria told her, surreptitiously closing the door behind them. “For instance, imagine a cauldron there, in the center of the room.” A cauldron appeared. “I overheard some House Elves talking about it. Apparently, it can be whatever you want, and do whatever you need it to do. For instance, if you were to wish for some privacy…” Maria glanced over her shoulder, and the door disappeared. “Now nobody can get in unless you want them to.”

                “And it can make anything?” Bellatrix looked excited.

                “Pretty much. It just can’t make the rarer finished potions, wands, and food.” She still didn’t get the whole food thing, no matter how much Hermione tried to explain it to her. She could make a cow, but not a steak? A pig, but not bacon? A chicken, but not hot wings? There was some weird, screwy logic there that she couldn’t wrap her brain around.

                “I wonder…” Bellatrix looked at the cauldron, and a set of ingredients appeared on the table next to it. Her face lit up, then fell as she realized that several of the rarest ingredients were missing. “Pity.” Bellatrix muttered, the ingredients disappearing.

                “I suppose it’s probably limited to the things that would reasonably within the school.” Maria modified. Bellatrix nodded, and then gave Maria a shrewd look.

                “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, trying to distract me from the meeting tonight.” She said, making several books and a few target dummies appear nonetheless. Maria smirked.

                “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

_Two hours later_

                “My lord, the new recruits are here.” Lucius said, kneeling before a young man.

                “Yes, I see that.” The man drawled, amused. “Tell me, did everyone come?” Lucius shook his head.

                “No my lord. I’m afraid Bellatrix Black rejected Rabastan’s offer.” Voldemort nodded. He’d expected that. To be perfectly honest, after hearing so much about how powerful and smart the young witch was, he’d have been disappointed if she had agreed to come with Rabastan. “Should I send Rudolphous and Rabastan back to the castle to ‘fetch’ her?” Lucius asked. Voldemort considered it for a moment, and then shook his head.

                “No. There’s no rush. Give her a week to forget about us, then go with them and drag her out to the forest. Now come, there are new recruits to speak to.” He turned and walked past Lucius to the curious and eager students his followers had brought out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading guys! Please review! See you next time!


End file.
